Over at the Huffington Post, Louise Phillips has some interesting thoughts on giving things up to be in coalition.  Where both parties agree on something , coalition is straight forward.  But when two quite different parties share a coalition government there are bound to be disagreements.

So how do parties in coalition square their opposing views?  After all, you can’t both do something and not do it.  Where your ideas are not that different, a compromise position can sometimes be found.  Otherwise, coalition means giving things up.  It works by you giving something up, letting your partners have their own way, and  in return they give  something up, letting you have your own way.

Louise explains that: “compromise isn’t always possible and sometimes you have to let the other party have their own way.  Both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have done this in the current coalition.   There have been a lot of sacrifices from the Liberal Democrats in the past two years. Tuition fees (obviously); mansion tax; free schools. But, and this is the argument I make in the pub whenever someone finds out I used to work for the [Conservative] party, the Tories are giving up more. They have sacrificed long held beliefs on taxation to allow the Lib Dems to raise the tax threshold to £10,000, putting money back into the pocket of most working people in the country. This is no small matter. This is putting money back into the pockets of ordinary people – and it comes at the cost of not letting the Tories scrap the 50p tax rate for the richest, or cutting inheritance tax for millionaires or giving married couples tax breaks. Making the Conservatives give up their tax priorities for Liberal Democrat ones is no small thing.”

She goes on to say: “The Tories on the backbenches are seething at the amount of power the Lib Dems have in government … on Tax, Europe, human rights, justice, the health bill – the influence the Lib Dems have is being decried by Conservatives across the board.”

Public opinion suggests that it is the Lib Dems who are giving things up for coalition but that’s only half of the story.  As Louise says:  “What [the Lib Dems] need to start communicating is that the Tories are doing the same. And it’s making the policies that affect real people in this country fairer.”

 The full article can be found here at the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/louise-phillips/are-the-lib-dems-giving-up-more_b_1286330.html