John Reid is against it. David Blunkett is against it. Ian Dale is against it. Even 'Lib Dem' Mark Littlewood is against it. [For the 8.55 argument on the Today programme, Mark Littlewood was asked to speak for the Lib Dems. His Labour foil, Sunder Katwala, asked why and pointed out that he could understand why Littlewood was in favour of a Tory/LD coalition since he runs 'a Thatcherite Think Tank'. Well, quite.]
These are all compelling reasons to think that a coalition between the LDs and Labour could work and could deliver a significant amount which a LD/Tory coalition would be unlikely to do. As ever, Paddy Ashdown shone for us on Radio 4 and explained why a Labour/LD coalition could work, despite the needless blatherings of Naughtie and the attempted intrigues of Nick Robinson. Essentially, Paddy's point was that the nationalists and other smaller parties would never vote with a Tory opposition and they would support PR or AV so a LD/Labour government could work. Also, could a Tory opposition which has made much of its desire to cut the deficit - with little evidence of how they would do this - vote against a budget which addressed this, even if they bleated that it 'didn't go far enough'?
I found a Tory election leaflet from Henley last night. In it my opponent railed against a coalition with the Lib Dems, incredibly using the Lib Dems' position on the Lisbon Treaty as the reason for his opposition to any such deal. There seemed to be no irony intended and perhaps the lack of space on the leaflet was the reason he did not set out how David Cameron had performed a startling reverse ferret on this very issue, promising a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty as a 'cast-iron guarantee' and then deciding that a referendum would not be necessary. From this I conclude that he is against a coalition. How many of his colleagues are as well?
Who'd be Nick Clegg...?
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