The doctrine of the mandate states that the victorious party in a general election has the authority to implement the policy programme it presented to voters. The pledges in a party’s election manifesto give voters a good idea of what it will do if elected, and voters expect the winning party to deliver on them once in office.
A related element is that a government should not introduce major policy changes unless they have been presented to the electorate. Labour claims that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government formed in 2010 does not have a mandate to introduce major reform of the National Health Service, which the Liberal Democrats had opposed. In its 2011 report on the formation of the coalition, the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee rejected assertions that the coalition lacked democratic legitimacy. It noted that, as no government has won a majority vote since 1935, the mandate has long been problematic. The coalition parties together secured a majority of votes in 2010, but no one had specifically voted for a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.
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