We have less than two weeks before the general election and currently every single poll points to a hung parliament.
With this in mind I read with interest that Dr Karl Mackie of CEDR is calling on the three main parties to use mediation to form the next government in the event of a hung parliament. The letter has been sent to all three of the main party leaders suggesting a range of options to bring in neutral negotiators to help them make the next government.
The Centre (known as CEDR), which was set up 20 years ago to reduce the cost of conflict for business, believes that the politicians will find it hard or impossible to do this on their own. Particularly worrying were the party leaders' responses to the question on collaboration in Thursday's Prime Ministerial debate which showed that there was very little understanding between them, not only of what collaboration was but also how to go about doing it. With the level of personal animosity being built up in this election, getting around a table to create working partnerships will be a mammoth task which should not just be left to politicians or civil servants.
Some observations.
1 CEDR are clearly making a play for what would be a cracking piece of business, namely mediating the first possible coalition government since 1940 to 1945 in this country.
2 The election result is not assured(as I am sure Mackie would recognise) and it may be that even if there is a hung parliament, the prime minister of the day may soldier on as a minority government, rather than reaching for a coalition.
3 As it stands, the Uk Parliamenttary system does not support effective negotaition due to the adverserial party system. As a consequence, Mackie is CORRECT that mediators would help.
However, there is an even bigger deficit than the parties not having a mediator should they need to enter into negotiations.
The need to have an effective negotiation strategy.
Party leaders are likely to use as their negotiators inappopriate people are likely to sell themselvves short because they will feel compelled senior party figures, who just may not be up to the task of negotiating.