Coalitions can—and do—work. Just ask the Tories

"Coalitions never work. Disagreement. Stalemate. Disaster."

Smugly, Labour sympathisers think it will be over before we know it. Best to go it alone, some Tories said, and dare the Liberals to vote down deficit-cutting measures that could provoke economic and political turbulence.

But the Tory party itself is a coalition—libertarians, moralists and one nation Conservatives among them. And it has remained pretty united under Cameron, achieving the greatest swing for the Tories since 1931 in this general election. In fact, it seems as though the main reason the Tories didn’t secure an overall majority was that the leadership was fixated on managing the internal coalition, not reaching out to floating voters with substantial policies.

Just look at London. Almost everyone lives and works next to immigrants. Poverty is stark and visible. The gay community is sizeable. Doubt remained among liberal Londoners whether the Tory Party as a whole had really changed—whether they had embraced multicultural Britain, would support the poorest and were socially liberal.

They heard of the shadow home secretary wanting to allow B&B owners to turn away same-sex couples, of a Tory candidate believing homosexuality could be cured. And they kept reading that one of the Conservatives’ main policies was cutting inheritance tax for the wealthiest, yet they saw no financial support for the poorest, no living wage or a higher personal tax allowance. So Tory target seats like Hammersmith, Westminster North, Tooting and Sutton and Cheam stayed with what they knew. Only Richmond went blue—but voters sensed Zac Goldsmith was a different type of Tory.

It was a real shame. Team Cameron’s message of redistributing power to individuals and communities is what this country needs—to free public service professionals from the shackles of targets, to give charities the tools to transform deprived communities, to let passionate people set up schools, to give parents greater control over how they balance their time at work and with the family, and to hand greater powers to local authorities so people feel they could really influence the shape of their communities.

Yet, this hugely attractive argument about “people power” was diluted by the caution of the inner circle. They were fearful of taking it too far—of increasing the minimum wage, taking the poorest out of tax altogether, establishing the right to request flexible working for all—in case it was too much for the more traditional parts of the party.

They were so keen to keep different small but vocal factions within the party on side, that they gave each of them separate policies: an inheritance tax cut for the Lockean libertarians; a marriage allowance for the traditional social conservatives; withdrawal from the mainstream centre-right group for the eurosceptics. it kept these groups united, but it confused too much of the electorate.

However, despite falling short of a majority, the idealists that populate Cameron’s inner circle ought not to be disappointed. A coalition with the Liberal Democrats could well be the most effective way of seeing the Cameron project implemented. The liberal front bench are natural bedfellows with the Cameroons: both believe a strong, commanding, Labour-style state is not the solution to our social and political problems, but they don’t simply want to slash it. The Cameroons want to “use the state to remake society”–for it to be an enabler rather than a provider of services, as Oliver Letwin puts it. On a range of policy areas – the environment, school reform, civil liberties – they travel in the same direction.

Of course, concessions on policies had to be made by both parties for a deal to be formed. That’s pragmatism, keeping your eye on the bigger goal of forming a strong government, not selling out. And, actually, the dropping of the Lib Dem amnesty for illegal immigrants and the Tory inheritance tax cut for wealthy families would probably be welcomed by the public.

On the question of electoral reform, Cameron was warned by some in his party to give no ground. But the antiquated first past the post system leads to the will of thousands of people being underrepresented in parliament and disenfranchises people who believe their vote is simply worthless in safe seats. It is a major reason for political apathy. If Cameron is serious about giving power to people, we need an electoral system where people feel their vote really will make a difference. The referendum on electoral reform puts Cameron's “people power” philosophy in action.

This coalition really can work. The Lib-Lab-others’ "rainbow alliance" would have outraged the public; and the numbers simply didn’t add up, leaving a weak government. The Lib-Con pact is the real progressive alliance, based on a united vision of radical devolution of power to people and public servants. This is what people clearly voted for at the election: a change from Labour’s big government approach.

Ryan Shorthouse is Spokesman for Bright Blue, which campaigns for progressive Conservative policies