09/07/12

The three rules for a successful marriage

by David Philpott, chairman of the IoD Kent branch

I remember the conversation well.

I had not long been installed as chairman when the business editor of this newspaper phoned to ask if the IoD had a view on the verdict of the electorate. It was May 7 or 8, 2010 and no party had won a majority.

Hesitatingly – clumsily perhaps – I hinted that some kind of compromise might be found and that a government could be formed in a matter of days.

“You mean a coalition?” asked the distinguished commentator. “Well, that’s clearly not going to happen,” I declaimed with the confidence of a time-served pollster.

I then went on the mumble and fumble with talk of consensus politics and the grave circumstances we found ourselves in as a nation in the face of the budget deficit.

When a few days later, Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg tied the knot on the lawn of Number 10, I realised that I had missed my chance.

Had I said emphatically “YES” when asked about the desirability of a coalition being formed, I would have been hailed as a visionary, a soothsayer, a futurologist no less. Or perhaps not.

I recently saw a famous redtop ex-editor proclaiming on television that he has placed a £1,000 bet with Ladbrokes on a collapse of the coalition by November and that Mr Cameron would no longer be Prime Minister.

Indeed, as I write, the coalition is creaking. Education Minister Mr Gove was summoned to the House recently to explain why MPs first read about his plans to resurrect O-levels in the Daily Mail and not in a Green Paper.

It appears he had not even consulted his (erstwhile?) Lib Dem Coalition partners –including Sarah Tether MP, the junior Education Minister.

Be that as it may. I have no view on whether O-levels should be re-introduced or not, but I do know that the three rules for a successful marriage are (1) Communication (2) Communication, and (3) Communication.

When couples stop talking to each other, the slippery slide to separation and then divorce is often an inevitability.

If I were a betting man I would give this coalition a 50/50 chance of seeing out the full term.

That being the case – metaphorically speaking – I am hedging my bets.

In my business life, which involves significant interactions with the public sector – especially health, policing, education and social services budget holders – I am beginning to advise colleagues to have a Plan B.

A change of government will in many cases mean a change of personalities and that starts at the top and runs right through the public sector.

The Coalition honeymoon has long been over and one senses that this is becoming a loveless marriage.

The spectre of Mr Boris “Wiff Waff” Johnson becoming Prime Minister is rapidly moving from the hinterlands of fantasy to the heartlands of possibility.

And of course we must not write off Mr Miliband. Mr David Miliband.