As predicted by BBC Newsnight bod Paul Mason:
The Coalition will fall. Not because of protest, not because of unpopularity but because everytime it tries to do something serious a bit falls off the machine. If they don’t get AV and Vince Cable does not get radical banking reform, then by the time the public sector job losses are eating into their popularity, around party conference time, the Libdems will call it a day. Even more audaciously I will predict the outcome: no election but a Second Coalition to be formed between the Conservatives, an inner core of Orange Book Libdem leaders and various Unionists, with a slim majority. One or two Labour rightwingers, disgruntled by Ed Miliband, may also be tempted to join. Cameron will face down the Conservative right and embrace Coalition government as a modus operandi until 2015. Labour, locked in a policy review process and possibly still reeling from (8) above, will avoid an election.
Jamie had some fun with the second part of that prediction, but I want to look at the first part. Protests, especially in the UK, do not have a particularly good track record in bringing governments down, or even get them to change their minds, but the ConDems are more vulnerable than most, largely due to the Dem part of it and its internal contradictions. Even then, it’s hard to imagine protests, even ones as big as the 2003 anti-war protests, will do much to disrupt the coalition, other than to accelerate the weakening of the machine as Mason puts it.
However, there is the potential for a huge, embarassing clusterfuck to happen smack dab in the middle of the ConDem’s reign. I’m talking of course about the 2012 London Olympics, enthusiasm for which never was that high in the first place, which will make the perfect opportunity for anybody fed up with the coalition’s policies to show their displeasure in front of the whole world. BBC London News today reported that a large part of the success of the Vancouver Winter Olympics was due to the large number of well trained, friendly volunteers at the games — image what could happen if thousands of disgruntled students, jobseekers and other victims of ConDem policies decide to take to the streets during the London games…
What struck me was the contrast between what will be everyday life in England after two years of budget cuts, slashed social services and a crumbling social infrastructure and the attempt to turn London in the world’s largest potemkin village as the Olympics come to visit. Normally the general public is not keen on anybody who politicises the Olympics, but when many members of it will be victims of ConDemmed policies themselves, how will that change?