06 May What Cameron should not learn from Harper

One hates to discourage any American foray in Canadian political analysis, but Fivethirtyeight.com [bad link fixed], the normally reliable US political blog that draws on the statistical tools of Sabermetrics, badly bollixed one such attempt yesterday.

The website, which is predicting a near Conservative majority in today’s British election, carries an article by research assistant Thomas Dollar, urging Tory Leader David Cameron to follow Stephen Harper’s example and “Go Big or Go Home.” Moneyquote:

Harper’s 2008 budget would have cut Federal funding of parliamentary elections–to the benefit of the Conservatives. All opposition parties formed an ABC coalition–Anyone but Conservative–to defeat this. The defeat of a budget resolution is considered a Motion of No Confidence, which would have triggered new elections only six weeks after the previous ones. Harper resolved this crisis by having Governor General Michaëlle Jean prorogue the parliament — effectively locking it out until late January 2009. In the meantime, Harper was able to secure Liberal backing for procedural votes in exchange for scrapping the budget resolution.

Far from “going big,” Harper has stayed in office mainly by putting water in the Reform wine yearned for by his base. The Fall 2008 budget statement was the only time he tried to govern as if he had a majority—and Parliament promptly smacked him down. Contrary to Dollar’s analysis, a confidence defeat six weeks after the election would not have triggered another election; Precedent would have required Gov. Gen. Michëelle Jean to let the Liberals try to form a government. The opposition motion forced Harper into a frantic retreat, featuring an abuse of prorogation that Jean unwisely acquiesced to in defiance of most Parliamentary experts. The right wing nostrums that triggered the crisis were jettisoned, but gave voters a cautionary taste of how Harper would govern if they ever were unwise enough to give him a real majority.

The Harper government’s bully-boy treatment of Richard Colvin, a career diplomat who raised concerns about Canadian complicity in the torture of Afghan detainees, reinforced voter fears, and Harper’s upward march in the polls has stalled—perhaps permanently.

If there is any pedagogy for Cameron in this, it is the opposite of that proposed by Dollar. A minority PM should proceed cautiously, treating the hung election as a voter mandate to “make Parliament work.”