The deal has been done and today was the first day of the new Conservative/Liberal Democratic Coalition government. At the moment all is sweetness and light, as it should be. The new policies they have negotiated have been announced and clearly show the compromises that both sides have had to make to reach agreement. The devil is in the detail and it will be interesting to see how words are translated into action. There are a few things that immediately struck me. The first was the scrapping of the ID Card proposal: hooray. The second was stopping the children of immigrants under investigation being detained in Yarlswood Prison: hooray. The third was the absence of any commitment to remove the ban on fox hunting: hooray. There seems to be some substance in the areas of civil liberties and the environment. Of course, the whole agreement is riddled with ambiguous and essentially meaningless statements. As I said earlier, the devil is in the detail. My opinion? I'll reserve my judgement and give them all a chance to show what they can do. But I can't help remembering what my grandmother used to say: "there'll be tears before bedtime".
Turning now to the losers, today the first candidate in the leadership contest threw his hat into the ring. David Milliband has said that he would stand. It will be interesting to see how he intends to take the Labour party forward. I have a feeling that he is not going to take the party in the direction I would like. Will someone more to the left of the party emerge as a runner? John Cruddas, for example? It's obvious that the coalition occupies the middle ground and Labour (is it still New Labour?) will have to think very carefully about where it positions itself. How about to the left? Now there's a novel thought for a so-called socialist party!
PS: Excellent leaving speech given by Gordon Brown yesterday. If only he had shown this side of his character more often.
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