One year ago, British voters made history by forcing rival politicians into the first coalition government since the end of World War II. And they celebrated the first anniversary of that event on Friday by delivering verdicts in a series of elections that could yet tear that same coalition government apart.
A day earlier, on a “super Thursday” of polls, there were elections for all 279 local administrations outside London and for the devolved assemblies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. On top of that, there was the first nationwide referendum for 36 years, offering voters the chance to replace the first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all system for national parliamentary elections with the Alternative Vote — or AV — system, where they could rank candidates in order of preference.
The AV referendum was the single biggest concession Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron handed Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg a year ago to woo the junior partner into the Conservative-led coalition government. The deal was done in the full knowledge that Clegg and his party would lead the campaign for a “yes” vote in the referendum while Cameron and his party would back the “no” campaign.
And as the results of all the various polls cascaded in over the course of Thursday night and Friday, the verdict was clear, unequivocal and, for the Liberal Democrats and their leader, devastating. Not only was the party virtually wiped out in local councils and assemblies, as voters punished them for sacrificing election promises — notably over the introduction of university tuition fees — as part of the coalition deal, but it also lost the referendum by almost two-to-one as voters decided they did not want AV, a system that could have lead to more coalition governments in future.
