A good friend of mine in London pointed out something that had already been rattling around my head: "the BA strikes are the fourth part of our return to the 70s....anything else we could copy from then? 3 day week???"
It seems there’s a couple of unique political scenarios in play right now that mirror the mid-1970s in remarkable clarity, and who knows how these retro-scenes will conclude.So it seems today that what has amusingly become known as the “ConDem” alliance between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats has unravelled. I think its wise for Mr Clegg to open discussions with Labour – afterall, if he and David Cameron can’t reach agreement with the lure of the keys to Number 10 Downing Street as the elephant in the room and with the media spotlight fuelled by an expectant nation as bright as it is; what chance do they have holding a government together in the melee of the day to day?
It turns out that parallel negotiations between The Liberal Party and The Conservatives in 1974 to solve another hung parliament collapsed on exactly the same issue – electoral reform. Its staggering that in 35 years this impasse is still not solved. That break down in talks let the Labour party back into government as I hope it will today.
Of course, that situation is a slight reverse of what is happening now though – that scenario prevented the incumbent party from retaining government and allowed the opposition in the door. Today of course, the reverse is – hopefully – happening: the challenging Conservatives might be denied power and the sitting government saved by Liberal collusion, bitter at their denial of electoral reform from the Tories.
Another major factor of course in this is Gordon Brown’s resignation (poor chap: "gifted man, ground down") – obviously a key condition of Clegg’s for negotiations to open. Talks have already begun and David Miliband’s absence a clue as to who might be Gordon’s successor. Of course Ted heath didn’t resign and was ultimately thrust out by his arch nemesis, Margaret Thatcher. I often think that the relationship between Heath and Thatcher is a mirror of Brown’s and Blair’s. I suspect Brown will now impersonate Heath’s grumpy back-bench grand-father demeanor for the remainder of his career.
But down under there’s another kooky mirror in play with those times. Articles have started emerging drawing attention to the similarities between Kevin Rudd and 70s PM Gough Whitlam – essentially boiling down to ‘lots of big ideas and good intentions; but executional incompetance’. In fact, so much so that in a recent interview with Julia Gillard, echoes of the great 1975 constitutional crisis of 1975 were heard. The Labor party will – potentiall - nail the controversial Resources Tax to the Budget which Wayne Swan hands down today, thereby daring Tony Abbott to block it as Menzies did back then – triggering political crisis (known as “blocking supply”).
In fact, a half-way-house for Clegg is a mere “confidence and supply” agreement with one party or the other – agreeing only to support the government in confidence votes and in passing the budget.
It struck me as odd though that while the Queen was able to solve the 1975 back then by empowering the Governor General to sack the Whitlam Government; she is not empowered right now – thankfully – to ask Mr Cameron to just get on and form a government according to what is clearly a popular mandate, if not a technical majority.
So while the famous line from Whitlam then: “God save the Queen, for no one can save the Governor General” one wonders who will save Nick Clegg from his very uncomfortable rock/hard place, Devil/deep-blue-sea dilemma.
(Fortunately, one parallel with the mid-1970s completely reversed is that England have qualified for the 2010 world cup which is more than they could manage in 1974. Not only that but they are seeded for once!)