New PM takes reins in Britain
Cameron gets nod after Tories enter into coalition with the Liberal Dems
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
By John F. Burns, The New York Times
LONDON -- Britain's Conservatives returned to power Tuesday after 13 years in opposition when David Cameron, a 43-year-old politician who has tried to recast the party of Margaret Thatcher as a more compassionate, less class-bound movement, took over as prime minister from Labour's Gordon Brown.
Five days after a general election that left the Conservatives 20 seats short of a majority, Mr. Cameron cobbled together an unlikely alliance with the Liberal Democrats to form a coalition government for the first time since World War II.
The strength of that partnership will be tested immediately by the financial crisis facing Europe and Britain's high levels of debt, which will call for deep and unpopular spending cuts. And the pressure will be on the new government to act swiftly to appease restive markets, which have battered the pound and threaten to downgrade Britain's debt unless bold measures are taken.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg will be deputy prime minister. The two parties are far apart on many issues, from immigration to relations with Europe, and what each conceded will not be public until today, when the Liberal Democrats are to vote on the deal. But there were reports that the Liberal Democrats would have five Cabinet seats and their prized electoral reform issue would be put to a voter referendum, though in its least far-reaching form.
The handover of power happened with the swiftness characteristic of Britain's parliamentary system. Less than 75 minutes after Mr. Brown fast-forwarded events by an unexpected announcement of his resignation at a Downing Street lectern, Mr. Cameron stood at the same lectern as Britain's new leader.
Mr. Cameron has spoken of Britain's need to undergo "an age of austerity" to try and shrink a $240 billion black hole in the government's annual accounts, the product in part of heavy spending by Labour during the global recession of the past two years. In his Downing Street remarks, he made clear that fiscal toughness would be a hallmark of his government.
But he also struck a note that echoed the inaugural address of one of Mr. Cameron's political heroes, U.S. President John F. Kennedy. He asked fellow Britons to turn their backs on a culture of selfishness, indiscipline and reliance on state benefits that Labour's Conservative critics have depicted as characteristic of their years in power.
"Don't just ask 'What are my entitlements?' but 'What are my responsibilities?' " Mr. Cameron said. "And don't just ask 'What am I owed?' but 'What can I give?' "
He also used a brief tribute to Mr. Brown as a vehicle for sketching the compassionate ideals he outlined during the campaign, in an attempt to remold the party from the no-nonsense, free-market, stridently anti-Soviet beliefs that drove Lady Thatcher's 11 years in office.
Mr. Brown served 10 years as chancellor of the exchequer in Prime Minister Tony Blair's government after the landslide that brought Labour to power in 1997, then succeeded Mr. Blair when he was ousted from office in 2007 on a wave of a Labour party anger over Britain's participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Even before Mr. Cameron went to Buckingham Place to accept Queen Elizabeth II's invitation to form a government, speculation centered on how long the pact with the Liberal Democrats would last. The party, which emerged in 1988, remains an often-fractious blend of two competing traditions, with a left-of-center group and younger members around Mr. Clegg who are seen as more centrist and focused on issues of economic fairness, ecological responsibility and human rights.
Many Conservatives said they doubted that the Liberals could hold to the pledges they were believed to have made to the Conservatives, especially on measures to cut the government deficit and introduce new discipline to Britain's prodigiously expensive welfare state.
Some analysts said they expected Mr. Cameron to concentrate for a year on measures to stabilize the economy. The British press reported that he and the Liberal Democrats had agreed on an austerity package that would be softened by Conservative concessions on issues at the heart of the Liberals' election campaign, including relief for the poorest taxpayers and abandonment of a Conservative pledge to eliminate inheritance taxes on any estate valued at less than $1.5 million. But after that initial year, these analysts said, Mr. Cameron might be tempted to call a new election in a bid to win a majority.
Mr. Brown's farewell remarks in Downing Street were brief, and -- for a man who has been famously reluctant to show emotion in public -- strikingly sentimental. He appeared at the Downing Street lectern with his wife, Sarah, and his two tousle-haired boys, who have been kept out of the media spotlight in his three years as prime minister. He said he had "loved the job" not for its trappings, but for its "potential" for good -- but for all that, it was only "the second most important job I can ever hold," after that of husband and father.
Then he wished Mr. Cameron success, and left with his family for the palace.
Minutes after stepping into 10 Downing Street, which serves prime ministers as office and home, Mr. Cameron took his first congratulatory telephone call as Britain's new leader from President Barack Obama, who invited him and his wife to visit Washington in June.
Officials said Mr. Cameron then received his first briefing, an overview of national security issues. Previous Downing Street occupants have said the briefing includes instructions on the prime minister's power, in extreme circumstances, to order the firing of intercontinental ballistic missiles by Britain's small fleet of Trident nuclear submarines.
With at least some Liberal Democrats deeply disgruntled by the party leadership's decision to reject a last-minute bid from Mr. Brown to join a Labour-led coalition, there was a possibility, although a slim one, of the pact with the Conservatives being rejected.
In that case, Conservative officials said, Mr. Cameron would seek to govern with a parliamentary minority, relying on the Conservative bloc of 306 MPs and whatever support he could muster on an issue-by-issue basis from the Liberal Democrats, with 57 seats, and 28 members belonging to eight smaller parties.
Labour, with 258 members, is likely to devote much of its energies in the next few months to electing a new leader to succeed Mr. Brown, who resigned simultaneously as party leader and prime minister.
The contending strains in Liberal Democrat thinking appeared to have spawned the crisis in the coalition talks Monday evening, when Mr. Clegg, under heavy pressure from left-wingers in his parliamentary caucus, announced suddenly that he was opening a new round of talks with the Labour party as a possible alternative to a coalition partnership with the Conservatives. That prompted Mr. Brown to announce that he would step aside as Labour leader over the summer, removing himself -- and his widespread unpopularity, seen by many as a cause of Labour's poor election showing -- as an impediment to a deal.
But the Clegg opening to Labour proved to be a feint, with Labour negotiators saying Mr. Clegg's representatives appeared to have made up their minds to join with the Conservatives before they met Tuesday morning with Labour.
When that meeting broke up, events moved swiftly to a conclusion. Aides said Mr. Brown spent his last Downing Street hours closeted with his wife and an inner circle of Cabinet ministers, pondering his choices, but concluded that his time was up when a succession of former Blairite Cabinet ministers went on television to condemn him for what they described as a refusal to accept that the Conservatives had won the right to rule.
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