Despite the brave smiles, the senior Lib Dems are wearing long faces. Matthew Parris
considers (£) the collapse of the Conservative vote in Oldham East and Saddleworth as a
disaster for the Lib Dems, their own vote sustained by an influx of Tory voters. The Tories may not recover that support, but that does not ease the Liberal Democrats’ dilemma. Parris
observes:
‘Privately Nick Clegg will have drawn from this the only sane conclusion, but it is one that I’ve found the Liberal Democrats strikingly reluctant to discuss. It is that in the seats where his party stands a chance next time, it must either re-engage the sympathies of its former supporters who are defecting to Labour, or it must throw itself upon the mercies of Tory sympathisers.’
As James and Nick Cohen write in this week’s magazine, Westminster does not lend itself to coalition.
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