Can Nick Clegg sing the blues?

Nick Clegg’s office already has a Downing Street feel to it. Since becoming leader of the Liberal Democrats, he has had it redecorated so that portraits of old party leaders hang on the staircase up to his room, as portraits of former prime minsters do in No. 10. It starts plausibly enough, with portraits of Palmerston, Gladstone and Asquith. The gravitas is somewhat lost when we get to Charles Kennedy and Ming Campbell. But neither came as close to power as Mr Clegg is now. If the polls are right, then he might be just weeks away from government.

The idea of a Lib-Con coalition is not one any Conservative relishes. But there is a limit to how long even the most optimistic Tory can keep ignoring opinion polls. For the past three months most polls have pointed to a hung parliament — and the trend is, if anything, reinforcing this view.