For the Record. David Cameron
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would damage the Lib Dems enormously.
In the early stages, the decisions for us weren’t as difficult. We dropped our pledge to cut inheritance tax, something we could reluctantly but easily sacrifice. The hard stuff was still to come.
With things going well, I held a drop-in session for MPs. Some were less than keen on the idea of coalition. A group of backbench Tory MPs who tended to be on the anti-modernising end of the spectrum – I referred to them as ‘the usual suspects’, because you were never surprised if they rejected any move to modernise, or rebelled on votes in Parliament – urged me to go into minority government and call a general election as soon as possible. Others simply said I should let the opposition parties form a rainbow coalition. I was undeterred: a full coalition was the right thing to do.
But when I met Clegg in my office that evening, something had changed. Though the negotiations were progressing, voting reform remained an obstacle. I had been offering an inquiry, but that wasn’t enough for the Lib Dems, and the teams were now talking about the whole deal only in terms of confidence and supply. Perhaps that was the best we could do. I signed off on the wording of such a deal that Sunday night.
Then, at 11 p.m. I called Clegg from my Commons office. He’d had a meeting with the prime minister. Brown had made an offer on voting reform – to hold a referendum on implementing the Alternative Vote (AV) system, a sort of halfway house between the current first-past-the-post system and full proportional representation, where voters would rank candidates. AV did avoid the biggest problems with PR. Under it, every constituency would still have an MP, and every MP a constituency. But my party would find it extremely hard to stomach, and so would I. Most importantly, I didn’t think the public wanted it either.
However, I realised that if we were asking the Lib Dems to make a political move they wouldn’t have imagined possible, we would have to consider things we didn’t imagine possible. Legislating directly for AV, of course not. But a referendum? That might be possible. After all, if one of my primary objections to AV was that the public didn’t want it, a referendum would test that.
That late-night phone call had been set up by our aides to confirm that a full coalition was off the table, and we were now only looking at confidence and supply. But Clegg and I both went off script. ‘Why are we doing this?’ we asked each other. We agreed that we should try again to go the whole hog. I said I would have another look at an AV referendum, and push my party towards a full coalition.
By Monday, though, I was utterly dejected. The soaring hopes of the morning before had been trampled, as the Lib Dems signalled their annoyance at the lack of movement on voting reform.
Worse was to come. When I met Clegg again in Parliament he said that Brown had now offered him a deal that was better than a referendum on AV. This confirmed what I had been hearing from colleagues and press contacts: Labour was throwing everything at staying in power, even talking to the Lib Dems about changing the country’s voting system to AV without asking the country.
I knew how hard it would be for Clegg to resist a full coalition and AV. But I also knew that Brown himself remained a huge barrier to a Lib–Lab deal. I appealed to Clegg as a democrat: ‘You can’t go with the guy who’s just been voted out.’ And I appealed to him as a rational human being: ‘You know you can’t work with him, but you know you can work with me.’
I gathered the shadow ministerial team in my Commons office for the second time that day. We hadn’t met in the nearby Shadow Cabinet Room since before the election, because I said we’d never go in there again. I am not a superstitious person, but we needed all the luck we could get, even if it did force party grandees to perch on chair arms and tables.
I outlined the Lib Dem proposals for a referendum and a deal. ‘We’ve got to offer something substantial on voting reform,’ I said. ‘And we’ve got to offer a full coalition.’
As we talked, Brown appeared on the television screen behind us. He said he would step down before the Labour conference in the autumn if that was what it would take for the Lib Dems to agree to a deal. It was a kamikaze mission. He was taking away one of the biggest obstacles to a Lib Dem deal with Labour.
Now it was clear what was at stake if we didn’t move.
Still, Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, and Theresa Villiers, shadow transport, said that we shouldn’t go ahead with the Lib Dems. But Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, Theresa May, the shadow work and pensions secretary – even David Mundell, who said he would lose his seat under AV – spoke in favour. Eric Pickles, the Conservative Party chairman, said in his laconic Yorkshire voice, ‘Go for it.’ He was echoed by the education spokesman and former journalist Michael Gove, an intellectual force in my inner team and a close friend. George Osborne agreed, adding that an AV referendum was essential if we were to persuade the Lib Dems to support us.
The chief whip, Patrick McLoughlin, a former miner and a veteran of the Margaret Thatcher and John Major governments, put it bluntly: ‘We have to live in the real world. Labour and the Lib Dems would be a legitimate government, and would command support in the country, especially with a new leader. We need to grasp this opportunity with both hands.’
I agreed. And I felt we had enough agreement round the room to proceed.
But I remained dejected. Brown’s gambit had changed everything. By sacrificing himself, I felt a Lib–Lab coalition was becoming inevitable. And while I was winning round my shadow cabinet over an AV promise, I wasn’t sure I could win over the party. ‘Put the pictures back up on the wall,’ I said as I walked out of my office, where everything had been packed up in bubble wrap, ready to be taken across the road to Downing Street. ‘It’s not going to happen.’
But even when things looked as hopeless as they did then, I knew I mustn’t stop trying. I went for one final push by paying a visit to our backbenchers’ forum, the 1922 Committee.
Along with the florist, the hair salon and the shooting gallery, the 22, as it is known, is one of many surprising features of Parliament: a trade-union-style meeting comprising, of all people, Tory MPs. Rather ominously for what we were about to embark on, it was named after the year Tory backbenchers decided to end the Lloyd George-led Liberal–Conservative alliance. It can often be a leader’s toughest audience.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘Brown’s going. And they’re offering a full coalition. And they’ll go all the way on voting reform. The very least we can offer is a referendum on AV. It is the price of power. Are you willing to pay the price?’
I went home with the party’s backing for what I was contemplating, but I still felt that it wasn’t going to go our way.
‘Would you mind if I went on leading the party in opposition?’ I asked Sam. We had been talking about how a rainbow coalition would barely have a majority, and a shambolic government with a short shelf-life would need to be held to account.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You must carry on.’
On Tuesday I woke to a text from Ed, telling me to call him. He informed me of the latest – maybe even the final – twist: the talks between Labour and the Lib Dems had broken down. We were back in the game. The negotiators got back to work, this time armed with our final big concession. My mood shifted once again, this time to anticipation. This might actually come off.
Things moved fast. That afternoon I was in my Commons office thrashing out the details with Clegg. We were still trying to establish how we’d reconcile our parties’ very different approaches to Britain’s nuclear deterrent, Trident. The word then came from the cabinet secretary that Brown wasn’t leaving No. 10 tomorrow, he was going right now.
Before the sun went down – he hadn’t wanted to leave in the dark – Brown resigned. I watched him addressing the cameras in Downing Street on the TV in my office, knowing that the time had come.
As I left Parliament for the final time as leader of the opposition, it wasn’t my car waiting outside the Commons to take me to Buckingham