If the opinion polls are right, Nigel Farage leads a party that will get more votes than the Liberal Democrats on 7 May. Nick Clegg, on the other hand, leads one that most observers think will outscore Ukip in terms of MPs. The disjunction is not the fault of either party but of the electoral system. It was strikingly reflected in the manifestos the two parties launched on Wednesday. Mr Farage’s Ukip manifesto was a populist pitch for the two-fingers-to-the-lot-of-them vote, the programme of a party whose goal is to make trouble rather than to take power. Mr Clegg’s Lib Dem manifesto, in complete contrast and in defiance of the traumas since 2010, was a carefully calibrated and costed job application for another five years as the junior partner in government.
More thought has gone into the 2015 Ukip manifesto than went into its 2010 predecessor. Admittedly, that would not have been difficult. But the 2015 version is as much of a ragbag of prejudices against the modern world as before. It yearns for the return of an imaginary low-tax, small-state, blokeish and bloody-minded Britain without either immigrants or parking wardens, unconnected to Europe, anti-aid, proudly in denial about climate change and still strutting its military stuff. This year’s version is more media-savvy than before, yet the essential aim, like Mr Farage’s election debate strategy, remains to embarrass. It is aimed more than anyone else at Conservatives who feel neglected by David Cameron. After 7 May, Ukip’s main impact may be to empower the Tory right more than to force its way into a coalition.
Coalition is what Mr Clegg’s party now exists for. The days of pretending he hoped to be prime minister of a Lib Dem majority government are gone, not surprisingly in the light of the polls. The last five years have been a bruising confrontation with reality, yet the Lib Dem manifesto still engages with the modern world in many principled ways that Ukip does not: on the threat to privacy and liberty from state data trawling, on the readiness to think afresh, albeit too cautiously for many, about UK nuclear weapons, on reform of the House of Lords and, above all, in the party’s clear and enduring commitment to Britain in Europe.
Yet Mr Clegg’s central focus is elsewhere: on balancing the budget, on education funding, raising personal allowances, NHS spending and the green agenda. He did not call them red lines, but these are what he would prioritise in coalition negotiations, given the chance. The agenda fit with the Tories looks easier in some ways, but there is a gulf between them on welfare cuts, while a coalition that put Britain’s EU place at risk would be a huge price to pay for the party.
Ukip and the Lib Dems at least share one thing. The party that can win votes but few seats and the party that can win seats with fewer votes concur that the British electoral system is bust. Both advocate a more proportional system. In this, at least, they are both right, though reform is not a Lib Dem red line as it once was. As the two-party system weakens, Britain must have a fairer electoral system if politics and government are to regain the credibility they need.
