Three more ministers for the Westcountry

David Cameron and Nick Clegg tonight appointed three Westcountry MPs to senior government jobs as their Liberal Conservative coalition took shape.

The move, on top of Yeovil MP David Laws' Cabinet job, gives the region a much bigger voice in Government than it had under Labour.

Liberal Democrat North Devon MP Nick Harvey becomes minister of state for the armed forces at the Ministry of Defence. He had previously been the frontbench spokesman on defence matters for his party.

He said: “It is an important job at a time when we are fighting a major war in Afghanistan and obviously I want to ensure the best possible support for our troops and the best possible outcome from the defence review.”

Jeremy Browne, the Lib Dem MP for Taunton Deane and former treasury spokesman, becomes a minister of state at the Foreign Office. He told the Western Morning News how he heard the news from Mr Clegg: “I got a call from the man I must start get used to calling the Deputy Prime Minister when I was in Tesco in Taunton.”

And Hugo Swire, long-serving Conservative MP for East Devon, becomes minister of state for Northern Ireland.

All three men are on the rung below Cabinet level on the ministerial ladder. Mr Laws was named Chief Secretary to the Treasury earlier this week, sitting in Cabinet and working alongside Chancellor George Osborne. West Dorset MP Oliver Letwin will be a minister at the Cabinet Office.

Maybe someone should have a look at Vince’s Twitter feed

Ah, the perils of the web. As Vince Cable is confirmed as Business Secretary, it might be worth whoever operates his Twitter account either taking it down or removing some of the less complimentary comments about his new Cabinet colleagues.

Tory Inheritance Tax cut costs £6bn and benefits 3000 wealthiest estates http://bit.ly/cZMdto 3:05 PM May 2nd via web
Labour and the Tories are as bad as each other. Their plans would drive public finances into the ground http://bit.ly/92qqDU 11:48 AM Apr 1st via web
Tory policy on NICs is school boy economics http://bit.ly/aBRGsq 1:15 PM Mar 29th via web
Osborne is out of his depth http://bit.ly/c64Uel 7:01 PM Feb 24th via web
Labour and Tories are accusing each other of being confused and contradictory on the economy, and they're both right. http://bit.ly/dDoROR 1:44 PM Feb 1st via web
Tories confused about cuts http://bit.ly/9I0lbx http://bit.ly/aJ9XwA 4:09 PM Jan 29th via web
Lack of clarity in Labour and Tory approaches to banks http://bit.ly/6uCyuK 10:29 AM Dec 7th, 2009 via web

Lib Dem MP reveals 80% of new government policies are from Lib Dem manifesto

The remarkable thing overnight and this morning is the extent to which the Tories have given way to the Lib Dems on key policies.

Both sides have been able to drop their more bonkers ideas (Inheritance Tax/illegal immigrant amnesty) while moving on to the “liberal conservative” ground that both David Cameron and Nick Clegg favour.

Full details of the deal will come out this morning, with Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg (better get used to that) giving a press conference at 2.15pm

In the meantime, Andrew George - the staunchly independent Lib Dem MP for St Ives has put out a statement – admitting he favoured a deal with Labour but was satisfied the Tory deal is right for the country.

He also reveals 80 per cent of the new government’s policies are from the Lib Dem manifesto not the Tories’.

We’ll find out in the next few hours.

Andrew George's statement:

“The electorate had given MPs a clear mandate. One which required them to work together. There was no overall winner of the General Election.

“Liberal Democrats have always argued for consensus politics. In any case, it is the inevitable consequence of electoral reform. So this is consensus politics in practice.

“The last thing the country needs right now is unstable Government followed by another General Election in the autumn. I believe that the agreement reached is not only a good one for the Liberal Democrats – as the statement to be released later this morning will show – 80% of the policy commitments of the new Government are items from the Liberal Democrat rather than Conservative manifesto.

“Personally, I had hoped for an alignment of the centre left. However, the Labour Party were very clearly not prepared to do any kind of deal. They were not prepared to compromise. They wanted to go into opposition.

“I am aware that whichever way these negotiations went many local electors would be unhappy. I am keen to speak to as many people as possible about the challenges we faced, the conundrums we had to overcome in negotiation and the justification of having to come to a deal which, above all, put the national interest first.

“I will be holding public meetings in the coming months and am keen to hear from all who have an opinion on the matter. My Parliamentary colleagues and I will be releasing a joint statement later in the day setting out our ambitions for Cornwall in the new Government.”

Which Westcountry Lib Dems are heading for ministerial office?

Some might say it's early days, but we are hurtling towards the endgame so why not play at fantasy reshuffle.

Rumours are the Lib Dems will get six seats in a Cameron Cabinet, and according to some notes photographed on Nick Clegg's lap, they'll have a minister in every department.

So, who from Cornwall, Devon and Somerset could get a red box? This is my take (with their current job - at least at the time of writing) including their chances as I see it.

And crucially, as far as I am aware Lord Ashdown has not ruled out taking a government job. Brown famously offered him Northern Ireland after becoming PM. Could Paddy achieve what he set out to do 13 years ago, and get a seat at the top table?

Certain
Schools spokesman and negotiator David Laws (Yeovil)

LikelyDefence spokesman Nick Harvey (North Devon)
Treasury spokesman Jeremy Browne (Taunton Deane)
Commons spokesman David Heath (Somerton and Frome)

Possible
Deputy chief whip Adrian Sanders (Torbay)
Communities spokesman Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall)
Andrew George (St Ives)
Paddy Ashdown???

Only just elected
Steve Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay)
Tessa Munt (Wells)

*Julia Goldsworthy would surely have been a shoe-in, had she not lost Camborne and Redruth by just 66 votes.

Ben Bradshaw smiles as Adam Boulton almost loses it - again*

I have some sympathy for Adam here. I have had infuriating conversations with Labour candidates, MPs and activists who fail to accept the outcome of the election. One even told they were "absolutely ecstatic" with the result.

It's like trying to get Granny to start making arrangements for Grandad's funeral, but she refuses to accept that he is dead.

And the maths being peddled by Labour is bonkers. They say that if you add the Labour and Lib Dem vote together it is more than the Tories, which proves the majority of the nation are anti-Tory, so the Rainbow Coalition is the only option.

But the Tories got more votes than Labour on their own, and combined with the Lib Dem votes is double the Labour vote.

It is true no-one won this election outright, but that is because voters turned their back on Labour in favour of the Tories and the Lib Dems, who both saw their vote share rise.

The idea that voters all got together on Wednesday night to conspire to create a hung parliament - as some on all sides seem to suggest with all this "the people have spoken" stuff - is equally bizarre.

As an aside, a colleague noted that it is only a matter of time before a cartoon appears saying: "We have been without a government for three days - and things have never gone more smoothly."

* In case you haven't seen it elsewhere, here is the Adam Boulton v Alastair Campbell row which happened yesterday.

Lib Dem: You can’t trust the f***ing Tories

It seems we are inching towards a deal between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, with both leaders due to meet their MPs today.

They should not underestimate the unease and distrust in their ranks at the – especially among the Westcountry contingent who have just spent four weeks slogging it out in one of the dirtiest election campaigns many said they had seen.

Today’s Western Morning News contains a number of juicy comments from both Tories and Lib Dems – some on the record, some off – which should give the consensual negotiators pause for thought.

It seems to have brought out the potty-mouthed worst among them.

Liberal Democrats

One Lib Dem in the region said a deal with the Conservatives would be a "f***ing travesty". This morning on the way into a sun-drenched Parliament, a Lib Dem MP told me: “You can’t trust the f***ing Tories.”
Another frontbencher said: "Not many Lib Dems joined the Lib Dems to help the Tories, but every party lost so we are where we are. There are probably quite a lot of Tories who are not thrilled by the prospect of working with Liberal Democrats."

On electoral reform, a Devon Lib Dem source said: "This is what we have been waiting for, for 80 years. The economic crisis is huge but will continue for a few years. Constitutional reform would last 100 years. I am left with the slight sense the Tories are just leading us a dance and don't really want a deal at all."

Conservatives
Tories in the region seem no keener to cosy up to Lib Dems.
Hugo Swire, Tory MP for East Devon and a former member of the Mr Cameron's shadow cabinet, ridiculed the idea that the Lib Dems are "the new, fresh party", saying they had been a "disaster" when running Westcountry councils.
"The reason we kicked them out of overall control in Cornwall, the reason we kicked them out of Devon County Council and Somerset County Council… is we know how completely useless they are when they are in power."
One option understood to be being considered is a "confidence and supply" deal, under which the Lib Dems would undertake not to bring down a minority Conservative administration in return for assurances on certain policy areas.

"Given how flaky the Liberals are, how long that will last, who knows," Mr Swire added.

Labour

A Labour source claims Lib Dems in the region will defect to them on mass: "There will be mass insurrection among the Liberal Democrat grassroots."
And Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw said: "I still find it hard to believe that the Lib Dems would agree to a deal with the Conservatives without a referendum on electoral reform and if they fail to reach a deal with the Conservatives then our door is always open.

"We support a fair voting system. It was in our manifesto. There is an alternative to a Con-Lib collation, in a progressive alliance of Lib Dems, Labour, possibly the moderate Northern Ireland parties, that could deliver that historic political reform and manage the country and the economy stably for the next two or three years."
2pm UPDATE: All morning I have been speaking to MPs, new and old, of all three parties. A selection of their views:
Labour: "Brown must go, it's just a question of when. He was toxic on the doorstep."
Tory MP on Lib-Dems: "They will sh*t on you, they will be b*st*rds and then they will stab you in the back."
Lib Dem MP telling Tories: "Play your cards right and I'll make you my PPS."

After the Westcountry Lib/Con battles turned nasty, can they really all be friends?

The Conservative / Lib Dem battlegrounds in the Westcountry are not for the faint hearted. This campaign, to put it bluntly, got nasty.

Dozens of Lib Dem posters dumped on Dartmoor; two students arrested for vandalising Tory billboards; rumours of LibDem affairs; a Lib Dem reportedly calling a council worker a Nazi; private financial troubles splashed across front pages; Tories targetted for having second jobs; Lib Dems targetted for having no principles...

All this just in Devon and Cornwall.

In the three and a half years I have worked for the Western Morning News, most days I have had a Lib Dem on the phone tearing into the Tories (either an individual or 'them' as a whole) while Conservatives likewise condemned Lib Den local tactics and national irrelevance.

The scars of the 1980s and 1990s run deep.

On election night Lib Dem careers crashed by the smallest margins. Julia Goldsworthy, once tipped as a Lib Dem leader, lost to Tory George Eustice by just 66 votes. Lib Dem supporters wept, through disappointment, anger and sheer exhaustion. Imagine how they'll be feeling to see the possibility that George could be sharing power with Julia's old colleagues by the end of the week.

Lib Dem hopefuls like Karen Gillard and Terrye Teverson fought tough campaigns but were defeated by Tories. Bitterness reigns.

Others, notably Adrian Sanders, Jeremy Browne and David Heath increased their majorities despite being considered "in the bag" by Tories a week ago. Five years of hard constituency work clearly counting for more than Ashcroft's big bucks.

Others still, like Andrew George in St Ives, saw big majorities dramatically eroded.

Labour was in most areas an irrelevance. This was hand-to-hand, street-by-street combat between the Tories and Lib Dems, which took no prisoners.

And now they must form a government?

The public (or at least those out shopping and suddenly confronted by vox-popping hacks) have often wondered why the parties "can't all just work together". This weekend, we are finding out.

The conflict comes when voters realise that some of the policies they like could be sacrificed as part of the "working with" others.

Even if the leaderships present a tidy deal in Westminster - no foregone conclusion - this will get messy in the bombed out election battlefields of the Westcountry.