Cameron must head for the common ground

All the attention last week was on the Lib Dem split – but what about the division within the Conservatives? This is the greater threat to the coalition, and while there is not likely to be an earthquake soon, one can discern the outlines of the tectonic plates. Ladbrokes has odds of 5-2 of an election next year, and these don’t seem so short when one considers the short life of coalitions in British peacetime history. So where might the tension lie? A while ago, I referred to the bulk of the party as “mainstream Conservatism,” as a more useful phrase than the tautological “Tory right”. Tim Montgomerie last week drew a distinction between this and what Ken Clarke calls “liberal Conservatism”. I wrote about this in my News of the World column today, which prompted an email from a Tory MP saying how many of his colleagues are asking “what is the point if everything I stood for in May is just ignored in office – power with out principle is pointless and deeply unsatisfying”.