Reply #32: There are resignations going on, but Cameron will stay for the moment

[muriel_volestrangler]

On Thursday, Alan Johnson, the shadow chancellor for the Labour Party, resigned 'for personal reasons', which seem to be that his wife had an affair with the policeman assigned to give him personal protection. On Friday, Andy Coulson, an ex-tabloid editor (for Murdoch) who was David Cameron's comminucations chief, resigned, because the scandal over hacking into celebrities' (and politicians') phone mails looks likely to engulf him (one of his reporters went to prison for a a few years ago, but he claimed to know nothing about it; he resigned from the paper, and Cameron then employed him). Almost everyone now thinks he encouraged his reporters to do the illegal hacking; Murdoch is facing multiple lawsuits for invasion of privacy.

So Cameron's judgement is now in question. However, I don't think this will itself cause him many problems; the next major thing coming up is the local government elections in May, and, at the same time, a referendum on changing the Westminster voting system to Alternative Vote (generally known as Instant Runoff Voting in the US, I think). Getting a referendum on this was a big part of getting the Lib Dems, who are keen on it, into the coalition with the Tories. The parties are not going to have official policies on being for or against it, but most Tory MPs are against it, and Labour is split. Polls seem to show it might get through, but a lot of voters are undecided about it, and there are a lot of votes to be won by the campaigns, if they can get people to care about it (really, I think most people don't care).

If AV gets passed, Lib Dem morale may hold up enough for them to remain in the coalition; if it doesn't, and if Lib Dems do badly in the local elections (expected, since many of their voters think the coalition austerity policies are against what the Lib Dems stand for), it's possible the Lib Dems could fall apart, which might mean the coalition loses its majority (some, like the leader Nick Clegg, seem so committed to the coalition that I think he'll stay with it no matter what, even changing party if needed).