Many a Conservative MP will spend the summer dreaming happily about what the party should do in office once it has freed itself from the shackles of coalition. Few even consider the painful truth — that the coalition party most likely to survive the next election is not the Conservatives but the Lib Dems.
Imagine the misery of watching Nick Clegg disappear through the door of No. 10 to begin his second term as deputy PM — this time under Ed Miliband. But it could be worse: it could be Vince Cable, who seems to have decided (in spite of declaring himself too old at 64 to stand for the Lib Dem leadership in 2007) that he fancies a crack at the job in his early seventies.
For ambitious Tories, the possibility of a Labour-Lib Dem coalition after the next election would be many times worse than an outright Labour victory. In spite of the likely collapse of the Lib Dem share of the popular vote, it would present the impression that the Tories had been rejected and Lib Dems rewarded for five years of coalition. Moreover, it would create a sense of normality about coalitions in Britain, and open the way to yet another Lib Dem bid to introduce proportional representation into Westminster elections — only this time in the form of a system which suited Labour, too.
Never mind that the Lib Dems are bumping along on at 10 per cent in the polls; a Labour-Lib Dem coalition after 2015 is more likely than an outright victory, thinks Philip Cowley, professor of parliamentary government at the University of Nottingham. ‘I think they will poll better than 10 per cent, and at the local level they enjoy an “incumbency bonus”.
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