Tories in Downing Street have concluded that they cannot rely on the support of any Liberal Democrats who are not ministers after the General Election, Coffee House has learned.
Even though most talk of how a Tory-Lib Dem coalition would work focuses on the number of seats each party would win, I understand that the Conservatives are now working on the basis that a coalition majority could only include those Lib Dems who are on the government payroll. Most forecasts currently put the Lib Dems on around 25 seats, and the Conservatives expect that this would lead to 10 of those MPs being appointed ministers.
The reason Number 10 has cut the number of Lib Dems available to form a government is that Nick Clegg’s backbenchers are becoming steadily more rebellious, and those who have been appointed parliamentary private secretaries to ministers (which is normally a way of ensuring loyalty from a greater number of backbenchers) have developed a habit of resigning to rebel against the government.
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