PR will be the price for the Lib Dems propping up a Labour government

The Tories are the victim of an electoral pincer movement that might just turn into a formal pact

It was fascinating to see Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Ed Davey in their best bib and tucker at the Coronation on Saturday, chatting away amiably. What could they possibly have been discussing just two days after the parties they lead had performed so well in the local elections in England?

One benefit of such a grand Royal occasion is that it is possible to carry out political business in the full glare of the television cameras without recourse to clandestine liaisons that invariably get rumbled.

State funerals, in particular, are always greatly anticipated since they bring together presidents, prime ministers and diplomats from around the world. In one episode of Yes, Prime Minister, Jim Hacker explains the rationale of a “working funeral” to his wife: “It is a heaven sent opportunity to have some meaningful conversations … You can have some very useful discussions when the organ is playing but have to shut up during prayers.”

So, did our two knights of the opposition manage a “meaningful conversation” as the trumpets blared and Sir Antonio Pappano took the brilliant Coronation orchestra through its paces? It would be astonishing if they hadn’t, even if it was only to arrange a chat at some point to discuss tactics ahead of the general election.

They will deny it, of course. No deals, no pacts, no coalitions. Yesterday, in an interview with the BBC Sir Keir dismissed the idea of a deal with the Lib Dems, calling it a “hypothetical question”. But he refused to rule it out. Indeed, what last Thursday showed was that an anticonservative pincer movement is under way, without anything formal being agreed.

In the Midlands and the North – the so-called Red Wall demolished by Boris Johnson in 2019 – Labour is on course to retake many of the seats lost then. In the South, the Lib Dems are the main threat to the Conservatives and seemed to benefit from anti-tory tactical voting.

The Conservatives lost more than 1,000 councillors and control of almost 50 local authorities. Labour gained 536 councillors and 22 councils, while the Lib Dems took control of 12 authorities including Windsor and Maidenhead and Stratford-on-avon, as well as three in Devon, a traditional heartland.

Psephologists always enter a caveat when analysing local elections: it is never sensible to read across to the national polls. Parties that have fared badly locally have gone on to win in the country as a whole. The Tories won in 1992 despite atrocious local polls two years earlier (and after changing their leader) while Labour triumphed again in 2005 after securing just 25 per cent of the vote 12 months earlier.

But it is the squeeze from both sides that will most worry Tory election planners, because placating one lot of voters risks alienating the other. When so much effort has been invested in building up support in Northern seats through a shift of resources away from the South, the old base feels neglected, while the new Tories turn out to be less grateful than expected and revert to their old allegiances.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, writing in this newspaper on Monday, observed that the 2019 local elections were dreadful for the Tories, yet they won an 80-seat majority just a few months later. But they were a unique set of circumstances, combining Theresa May’s removal, Boris Johnson’s rise, Jeremy Corbyn and Brexit – an explosive political cocktail never to be replicated.

This feels more like 1997, when bad local results the previous year and a consistently poor showing in the opinion polls – with the Tories on occasions 30 points behind Labour – translated into a disastrous general election. We often remember the scale of Sir Tony Blair’s victory, with a majority of 179, the largest in post-war history, but forget that the flip-side was the worst Conservative showing since 1832, with a net loss of 178 seats.

Their woes were exacerbated by tactical voting by Labour supporters for Lib Dems in constituencies where the latter had the best chance of ousting the Tory candidate. Postelection analysis suggested this gave the Liberal Democrats 21 extra seats. Moreover, the Lib Dems won a total of 34 seats in England in 1997, so tactical voting probably accounted for something between half and two thirds of the seats that they secured. Is history about to repeat itself?

Certainly, last Thursday’s results suggested that tactical voting is back so far as the Tories are concerned. Labour’s vote share and its opinion poll lead is not enough to win outright, but the Lib Dems had their best result since 2010, performing well in the shires where they were already the main local opposition. So, will Sir Keir and Sir Ed be tempted to put this on a more formal basis and agree to soft pedal, or not even contest, seats where the other has the best chance of winning? The Liberal Democrats have been burned before, both when the Coalition came to an end in 2015 but also by Sir Tony in 1997.

Paddy Ashdown was led up the garden path by all sorts of promises that evaporated as soon as Labour had a stonking majority and didn’t need him. Even a manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on proportional representation (PR) was jettisoned, let alone an understanding that the Lib Dems would be invited into government even if Labour won outright.

Ashdown recounts in his diaries a meeting after the 1996 local elections where Sir Tony said his colleagues were pleased at the way people are increasingly voting tactically. “In the past, they would have seen your success as a threat. Now they welcome it,” he told Ashdown. But when he was pressed on PR, he equivocated. “I am now very confident that I can get to where I want to be,” said Sir Tony. “And that is recommending, in my own time, electoral reform. But Gordon still believes that it’s too early for PR.”

And therein lies the Lib Dems’ dilemma. If they so damage the Tories that Labour wins big, then all talk of “new politics” and constitutional change goes out of the window. Even when they got a referendum on electoral reform in 2011, public indifference and the hostility of their Coalition partners killed it at birth.

This time, the Lib Dems will want a copper-bottomed guarantee of PR if they are to enter any formal pact with Labour. Somehow, I doubt that Sir Ed received one in Westminster Abbey on Saturday.

It is the squeeze from both sides that will most worry Tory election planners