David Cameron offers … er, not very much really

Update: the party’s Federal Executive and Parliamentary Party are both meeting on Saturday to discuss what the party should do next. As I understand it there is no intention of the party leadership publicly proposing a position until before then.

Conservative leader David Cameron has just made his pitch to the TV cameras outlining the approach he wants to take to forming a government and reasons the Liberal Democrats should have for supporting it.

He outlined several areas of possible policy agreement. Some are ones where the parties clearly already agree, such as in opposing ID cards. Some are one where although the parties have disagreed greatly on details, there is significant overlap. Most notably, whilst the Liberal Democrat plans to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000 were widely attacked by the Tories, the basic idea of cutting income tax broadly is hardly one the Conservatives would find hard to stomach.

But all of those were statements of what we all already knew from the party manifestos and election campaigns. Faced with an actual hung Parliament, Cameron looked to be offering only one new proposal: a cross-party commission on electoral and political reform.

That, of course, was Tony Blair’s offer in 1997 which subsequently turned to dust.

With one party having the most seats and the most votes, the need for concessions and agreement is much less than it might be otherwise. But even so is if that’s the one concession on offer so far, the obvious question is: “Is that enough?”.