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A leap of faith and a leap in the dark: the impact of coalition on the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats

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posted on 2023-06-08, 07:35 authored by Tim Bale, Emma Sanderson-Nash
The parties which, in May 2010, formed Britain’s first peacetime Coalition Government since the 1930s had both undergone considerable change during Labour’s 13 years of office under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. David Cameron’s Conservative Party had done much to move on and to move on out of the populist cul-de-sac into which it had been driven under the leadership of William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, none of whom managed to do much to alter the negative perceptions of the party that had hardened during Margaret Thatcher’s and John Major’s time in Number Ten. Likewise, Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats were a very different party from the one Paddy Ashdown attempted to lure towards Labour in 1997, and different again from the one Charles Kennedy led in opposition to Blair’s war in Iraq in 2003. Indeed, it was the changes to both parties, as well as the parliamentary arithmetic, which meant they were able to come to an agreement in May 2010.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Palgrave Macmillan

Page range

237-250

Pages

291.0

Book title

The Cameron-Clegg government coalition: politics in an age of austerity

Place of publication

Basingstoke, UK

ISBN

9780230290716

Department affiliated with

  • Politics Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

Simon Lee, Matt Beech

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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