The public verdict on the thirteen hour debate on the confidence motion in government was already out before the debate actually started. To many this had been a complete waste of time. To many more this was once again a descent into partisan pique, mudslinging and tomfoolery – a sentiment that would turn out to be fodder to the Labour side that claimed to be over and above the divisiveness that was still being sown by what in its words was a “negative” Opposition. That much time was dedicated to explain why and how a no-confidence motion had been moved is understandable. As is the marathon efforts of the Labour side of the house to turn this into a game of deviation.
In many ways Labour succeeded into getting everyone to believe that this was a motion of no-confidence in all its work and not in a very particular set of circumstances that threaten to damage any such good that has been done. We’ll have more time to delve into the lessons to be learnt from the marathon debate – lessons, I hasten to add, for all sides. What I would like to start with is the end: more specifically the tone of triumphalism set by Labour who claim to have “won the vote of confidence” and seem to believe to have weathered the storm. Politically it is true that the government survived the confidence motion and managed to turn it into a confirmation of what the countermotion deemed to be sterling work.
There’s another interesting angle to this chess game though. Admittedly it is an angle that can only be seen once you wear the dumbed down spectacles of partisan illusion but it is an angle that is worth exploring just the same.
At 9 am on Monday morning we knew already the numbers of the vote. The Nationalist side had 29 votes that would go to the no confidence side. Add to them the two independent MPs – that’s 31. Labour had it’s record majority of 38 MPs ready to shoot down any proposal that would shed a bad light on government. As partisan things go the numbers ran 38 against 31. So basically in order for the PN to claim even a slight form of victory one would expect that the number on the side of the No confidence motion would be anything above 31. Even if in the end it would lose the vote, any number of shifts from the preordained position would surely have been a victory of sorts to work upon.
Now the same goes for Labour though. It is useless to gloat on getting ones own votes that are after all only a reflection of the public state of mind in 2013. For Labour to “win” anything out of the vote you’d expect them to win over at least one vote from the other side. Anything less would not be a vote of confidence but merely a retrenchment of a party hanging on to power.
As it turns out there were no surprises. Indeed, no victors were to be registered in the House. The numbers at 9am remained the same numbers at 10pm. This may all sound like crazy reasoning but it is not all that fanciful as your average partisan voter may hope. There is truth also in these numbers. There is truth in the inflexibility of a popularly mandated majority that prefers to stick to power rather than take action on the rot that has begun to set. There is also truth in another not insignificant detail. The numbers do not really reflect the numbers at the start of this parliament in 2013. Seen from that perspective there is already one Labour MP who has shifted her allegiance to the side that has no confidence in this government.
In many ways she reflects the voice of the shifting mood outside of the house where seats are no longer so certain. This has to be the first lesson from the 13 hour marathon on Monday. Nobody won the vote that day – the only victor was a general retrenching. There was one ray of hope though, one MP sitting on the independent benches was doing her homework and had an ear and her heart outside the house. She was listening to the real numbers that underlie the house of representatives. And they were not smiling.
