Can this marriage of convenience work?

‘It is not the prize. It is a means to the prize.’ This is how one long-time political ally of David Cameron described the Tory leader’s entrance into Downing Street at the head of a coalition government. The deal with the Liberal Democrats which has put Cameron in Downing Street is, as this Cameron ally admits, ‘an arranged marriage not a love match’. In the run-up, the bride’s family was trying to negotiate a better dowry from an alternative suitor, and many in the groom’s family were praying that he would be jilted at the altar. Guests on both sides of the church could be heard whispering that the marriage would never last.

Yet a coalition with the Liberal Democrats has been the leadership’s aim ever since it came up short in its effort to gain an overall majority. They believed that a minority government without a fixed-term parliament was the worst possible combination, as it meant that the government could be toppled at any time. They concluded that, once inside government, the Liberal Democrats would be more committed to making things work and more likely to compromise on policy. George Osborne was also keen to gain political cover for the massive reductions in public spending that will be necessary to get the deficit under control. Indeed, I am told that ‘George regarded cover on cuts as the real prize.’

On Monday, the coalition seemed in danger. The Lib Dems wanted more concessions on electoral reform than the Tories had been prepared to give, and opened formal negotiations with Labour. There was something approaching panic amongst the Tory leadership, who feared a Labour-Lib Dem deal. At a dinner that evening, Mr Osborne said he believed the game was up.

For all the leadership’s dismay, Tory MPs were that evening bullish about the prospect of a Lib-Lab pact that would have been widely reviled and collapsed within months — leading, they believed, to a Conservative majority government.