Britain's New Labour era ends with Cameron taking power

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After an agonizing postelection limbo, Britain changed its colours last night with brutal suddenness: Gordon Brown walked with his wife and children out of 10 Downing Street, never to return, and less than an hour later Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron arrived, made a brief speech announcing a coalition government, and began ruling.

With that, Britain saw a change in governing vision and ideology, the first of its kind in 13 years, that will transform politics in dramatic and influential ways - a stark fusion of the political culture of left and right.

How well it will succeed, though, will depend on the success of the "proper and full coalition" announced by Mr. Cameron, 43, between an ideologically divided Conservative Party, which failed to receive a majority vote in last Thursday's election, and a centrist, generally left-leaning Liberal Democrat Party.

Unlike the New Labour project that Mr. Brown and his prime ministerial predecessor and archrival Tony Blair launched together in the mid-1990s, this new Conservative politics will be determined less by a drive to remake the nature of the Conservative Party - though Mr. Cameron has tried to do that - as much as by the vicissitudes of coalition politics.

As if to drive home the novelty of this new, almost German-style cross-bench unity, Mr. Cameron delivered an acceptance speech Tuesday that tried to balance right-wing values with pledges to maintain the social safety net: "I want to make sure that my government always looks after the elderly, the frail, the poorest in our country," he said.

It is a coalition that weds these very different parties in a tight bond, with Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg, also 43, appointed Deputy Prime Minister and four of his MPs taking positions in the cabinet, and as many as 15 others taking government positions - virtually guaranteeing that the fate of Mr. Clegg's far smaller party, which lost three seats in the election, will be inextricably tied to that of the Tories. If it works, it will avoid a crisis of legitimacy.

In a brief speech delivered long after midnight, Mr. Clegg announced that "we are going to form a new government - more importantly than anything else, we are going to form a new kind of government." He promised to "overcome our differences for the good of the whole country"- a tacit acknowledgment that many Britons had voted for his party as an explicit protest against the Tories and Labour, and saw this coalition as a betrayal.

In exchange, the Conservatives have agreed to abandon some of their more ideologically polarizing promises, including a tax break for married couples and a sharp cut in inheritance tax. They have also agreed to raise capital-gains taxes against their wishes, and to abandon a tax cut in National Insurance premiums. Perhaps most importantly, they agreed to hold a referendum on an alternative-vote ballot system, a long-standing desire of the Liberal Democrats.

If it succeeds, this change would deliver the party more seats in future elections. But the Liberal Democrats have had to abandon many policies that reflect their core values. Mr. Clegg's desire to make Britain more closely engaged in the European Union will be put on hold, and he agreed on a Tory plan to hold a referendum on any further EU powers. He must abandon a "mansion tax" on large homes and drop plans to abandon Britain's nuclear arsenal. And Mr. Clegg would drop his proposal for a mass amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Crucially for the Conservatives, Mr. Clegg agreed to their aggressive plans for budget cuts, which would begin immediately, with an emergency budget to be announced within 50 days to slash £6-billion from public spending.

With this, Mr. Clegg has agreed to abandon a promise made by both the Liberal Democrats and Labour to keep stimulus spending going until 2011 to ensure economic growth. Britain now faces a deficit of close to 12 per cent, much of it caused by the government taking large equity stakes in most major banks in order to rescue them from insolvency.

Both parties agreed to a five-year fixed-term parliament, probably similar to Canada's current four-year term, which can be broken by a vote of no-confidence on any bill.

In some ways, this novel coalition places bold emphasis on the changes that Mr. Cameron had already made to his Conservative Party, moving it away from the minimal-government austerity of Margaret Thatcher - still a beloved figure among the Tory rank and file - to a more centrist vision that would maintain high spending on the National Health Service and avoid most forms of confrontation on social policy. Despite his upper-class, Eton-educated image, Mr. Cameron is seen within his party as a "wet" moderate.

But the party's right remains a powerful force. During the election, as his bid for a community-oriented, volunteer-based "big society" failed to attract majority-level support, Mr. Cameron moved further to the right, pushing for tougher criminal sentences, caps on immigration and a partial retreat from Europe.

The Liberal Democrat coalition will force him back to the centre-right, though this will cause deep displeasure to many of his MPs. The Tory caucus includes a powerful social-conservative bloc, known as the Cornerstone Group, which is vocally opposed to any involvement in Europe, any major role of the state in civic life, and any reduction in the military.

Thatcherite Tories greeted the news with raised eyebrows. "David Cameron set out to change the image of the Conservative Party," said Michael Heseltine, a veteran of the Thatcher cabinet. "He has changed the image of himself in the minds of the people, I think, but he has not yet changed the party."

William Cash, an MP on the party's anti-Europe right, said that the Lib Dems would have to be kept under tight rein. "There are certain red lines," he said Tuesday night. "There are red lines on Europe, there are red lines on immigration - we believe this can work, but it will have to be done on the basis that there are issues where we have to have respect for the other side's position."

Those right-leaning MPs could prove a difficult presence in this government - as could a large group of Liberal Democrat MPs, perhaps half, who see their party as fundamentally opposed to the politics of the big parties, especially the Tories. The failure to obtain a shift to a full proportional-representation voting system - for many Lib Dems, the only thing that would make a coalition acceptable - will make party loyalty difficult to maintain on many votes.

The new coalition will be aided by disarray on the opposition benches: With Mr. Brown quitting as Labour leader and a new leadership vote to be held at a party conference in September, Labour will be in no position to stage a no-confidence vote until the new leader is established, probably well into 2011.

Mr. Cameron will face a difficult task, though, in keeping both his disgruntled right-wing MPs and Mr. Clegg's disillusioned left-leaning MPs from defeating his own government and triggering another tortured election. The centre-right columnist Simon Jenkins called it "the toughest hand of cards ever dealt a new prime minister." That may not be true, but it certainly is the most awkward ideological balancing act of the postwar era.