Inside the Tory party, boundaries are shifting

You know things really are difficult in the coalition when neither side is badmouthing the other. These days, when those around David Cameron and Nick Clegg bite their tongues, it tends to be because one jibe might bring down the coalition.

Since 24 July, everyone has been on best behaviour. Over dinner that evening, Cameron and George Osborne told Clegg and Danny Alexander that Lords reform was off: they could not persuade enough Tory backbenchers to support it. The Liberal Democrat duo replied that, if this was so, their MPs would not vote for the boundary changes the Conservatives so dearly want.

But the icy civility of recent days can’t disguise the fact that the coalition — indeed, the idea of coalition government — is in big trouble. When the boundary review is complete, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister will walk into different lobbies to vote on a piece of government business. One of the oldest certainties in British politics will have gone. Cabinet collective responsibility will have collapsed. Both sides are adamant that this vote will be a one-off. But once ministers have walked through different lobbies, they find it easier to do so again. And it’s tough to sustain a coalition when the leaders are no longer in control of their parties.

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It is hard to exaggerate what a blow to the Cameroons the Liberal Democrats withdrawing support for boundary changes is. One told me on Monday that he ‘couldn’t see how the Conservative party could ever win a majority again’. Reducing the number of parliamentary seats to 600 and redrawing the boundaries were crucial to the Conservative strategy at the next election. They had planned to target three types of seats: Labour ones they should have picked up on the national swing last time; ones where the Liberal Democrats are vulnerable; and new marginals created by the boundary review.