If the Radia tapes are dominating the public debate in India, it is a controversy over the secretly taped conversations of several senior Liberal Democrat Ministers that is rocking Britain. The tapes were leaked by a national newspaper to reveal the scale of divisions in the seven-month old Tory-led coalition. Wittily dubbed the “Libileaks,” the tapes show that behind the facade of public unity the coalition is actually in the grip of a virtual civil war with many on both sides seething with resentment. What, until now, was sought to be dismissed as media speculation or rumours is now official — on record and straight from the horse's mouth.
The jury is still out on how damaging the revelations may prove to be for the coalition in the long run but their timing caused a huge embarrassment to Prime Minister David Cameron and his Lib Dem deputy Nick Clegg. The leaks came just when they were about to hold a joint year-end press conference to list their government's achievements. In the event what was meant to have been a celebration of Britain's first coalition in 70 years (there were mince pies and mulled wine on offer) turned into an inquisition by journalists.
The sting operation was mounted by The Daily Telegraph , a pro-Tory newspaper, which sent two young undercover women reporters to Lib Dem Ministers posing as voters in their respective constituencies wishing to learn about their experience of working with the Tories. Apparently, minutes into the meeting(s) and the Ministers were pouring their hearts out to the reporters telling them how they hated being in the same room as the Tories and how their policies were just “not right” or were “blatantly” unfair.
One Minister confided how he was “gobsmacked” by the Tories' decision to scrap child benefit for higher rate taxpayers; another said he could not work with his senior Tory boss, Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, “for very long.” Another complained that the Tory Chancellor, George Osborne, had the “capacity to get up one's nose;” and one told the undercover reporters, “I don't want you to trust David Cameron.”
Transport Minister Norman Baker likened the role of Lib Dems in the coalition to the moderates who fought South Africa's apartheid regime from within.
“I always think in South African terms, should you be Nelson Mandela, outside the system, campaigning for it to be changed, or should you be Helen Suzman, who's my … one of my political heroes. Helen Suzman was in the apartheid regime when everybody was male and white and horrible actually. She got stuck in there in the South African parliament in the apartheid days as the only person there to oppose it. She stood up and championed that from inside,'' he said.
The most damaging comments, though, came from Business Secretary Vince Cable, a party veteran who is not only regarded as one of the safest hands in the government but whose presence in the coalition lends it legitimacy in the eyes of grassroots Lib Dems. In remarks that surprised even his admirers for their sheer naïveté, Mr. Cable boasted that he had the power to bring down the government. Working with the Tories was like a “war,” he said, but claimed he had the “nuclear option” to destroy them.
“Can I be very frank with you ... I have a nuclear option, it's like fighting a war. They know I have nuclear weapons, but I don't have any conventional weapons. If they push me too far then I can walk out of the government and bring the government down and they know that,” he said.
Observers were puzzled how someone so highly regarded for his sagacity and judgment — he is referred to as “St. Vince” — could have fallen into the trap. “Picture the scene in Dr. Cable's constituency office on the fateful day,” wrote The Observer columnist Andrew Rawnsely, “Two young women walk in off the street to seek from Vince his private opinions about the coalition. Is there a twitch in his antennae for trouble? Does he raise his guard? Does he for a moment wonder whether the femmes fatales might be undercover reporters? No, there is a meltdown in the brain of the great sage and evaporated is every ounce of the commonsense and judgment for which he was once hailed.”
The Lib Dems' candid confessions have been interpreted in two ways. One is that they were simply trying to impress their supposed constituents by telling them that they were not enjoying being in power but were doing it in the larger national interest. The second, closer to the truth, is that the episode merely confirmed what was widely suspected — that for all the show of unity the coalition is a shambles with the partners barely tolerating each other.
As Janet Street-Porter wrote in The Independent : “There are no surprises in the ensuing revelations — just confirmation of what many of us suspected: that working with people you hadn't even planned on getting engaged to, let alone sharing the bed with, is difficult. Every day, you have to bite your lip and pretend to the outside world (the media) that your shotgun marriage is working reasonably well and you're all chums. Deep down, you harbour seething resentment …''
Coming back to Messrs Cameron and Clegg's press conference. The pair (in Westminster Village they are known as the coalition's “golden couple” because of their great personal chemistry) tried valiantly to put a gloss on the episode by talking about the “dynamics” of coalition politics and how two parties with their own distinct policies and identities were bound to have different views. The important thing was that they had agreed to work together to provide political stability at a time when the country, going through a bruising recession, needed it most.
“Shock, horror, two different parties have different ideas,” said Mr. Clegg trying to make light of his Ministers' criticism of Tory policies.
Mr. Cameron said rhetorically: “Do we in this coalition have disagreements, arguments, which we work out in private and then make announcements in public? Yes we do. I would say judge the coalition on the record of what it's done. We couldn't do that without a good working relationship and a very strong team in the Cabinet.”
But if the two thought the worst was over, they were in for a shock. Even as they were trying to gather their breath after a gruelling media encounter, the BBC dropped a bomb-shell. It said it had got hold of a particularly damaging part of Mr. Cable's taped conversation that the Telegraph had withheld. In it, the Business Secretary claimed that he had “declared war” on Rupert Murdoch and “blocked” his bid to acquire full control of BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster that runs the Sky TV network. (Mr Murdoch's company has a 39 per cent stake in it and wants to acquire the remaining 61 per cent in the face of strong opposition from other media groups which fear that given that Mr. Murdoch already owns some of Britain's most important newspapers including The Times and The Sun , the proposed takeover would have serious and far-reaching consequences for media plurality.)
In the tapes, he tells the reporters who are heard giggling: “I have blocked it using the powers that I have got … I can't politicise it but from the people that know what is happening this is a big, big thing ... So there are things like that we do in government, that we can't do ... all we can do in [the] opposition is protest.”
This was politically explosive stuff. For as Business Secretary, Mr. Cable had a quasi-judicial role over Mr Murdoch's bid and his remarks were seen to breach the principle of impartiality he was obliged to observe. Within hours, he was stripped of his responsibility for media and telecommunications. An angry Downing Street, describing his remarks as “unacceptable,” announced that Mr. Cable would “play no further part in the decision over News Corporation's proposed takeover of BSkyB.” The issue would now be dealt with by the Tory Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, a self-confessed admirer of Mr. Murdoch and happily disposed towards his bid. So the unintended consequence of Mr. Cable's premature boast may be that it is Mr. Murdoch who actually ends up winning the “war.”
Embarrassing as all this has been for the coalition, questions are being asked about the ethics of the Telegraph 's tactics. The PCC has received more than 20 complaints arguing that a sting operation of this nature is justified only when undertaken in aid of public interest and that in this case no public interest was involved.
There are also fears that this could undermine the trust between MPs and their constituents. For now, though, the episode has exposed the true state of the coalition's health.
