What A Carve-Up: The Glittering Prizes Awaiting Cameron and Clegg

These are interesting times, aren’t they? Interesting but scarcely simple. Nick Clegg may have suggested that a deal must be done by close of play, Monday if it is to be done at all and all the signs may still point to David Cameron coming to an arrangement with the Liberal Democrats but, clearly, difficulties remain. How could it be otherwise given the complexity of the situation and the stakes?

Policy is the least of the problem. If one accepts that the old left-right labels are increasingly outmoded and that the defining divide today is between the centralisers and the localists, between the liberal and the statist then, theoretically at least, liberal Tories and true liberals in the Liberal Democrats can do a deal. The principles can be agreed first and policies bargained later. Yes, there will be red lines but establishing the broad parameters first is a confidence-building measure that lays the foundations for an accomodation.