Analysis: All downhill from the rose garden love-in

By DAVID MADDOX
Published on 11/07/2012 01:19

IT SEEMED appropriate yesterday that London was shrouded in dark, forbidding clouds that cast a gloom over Westminster.

The miserable weather provided a perfect contrast to that sunlit day in the Downing Street rose garden on 12 May, 2010, when David Cameron and Nick Clegg unveiled the coalition.

The bright optimism of that day and the chatter of a realignment of British politics seem more like an eternity than only two years away.

If there was any doubt that the “love-in” was over it was confirmed yesterday. The coalition will probably limp on to the election in 2015, but that is far from certain and there will be no Tory/ Lib Dem deal after that date, whatever the mathematics.

Being in government has turned a relationship of dislike into one of mutual loathing.

While Tory backbenchers regularly bemoan Lib Dem influence and watering down of their policies, the Liberal Democrats must be wondering exactly what they have got out of coalition government.

Lords reform was a last hope of getting some constitutional change they could take to the electorate and their own party members as a solid achievement.

They have taken the hit on tuition fees, failed in the alternative vote referendum and had to accept austerity cuts and, in the end, NHS reforms. They even had to accept David cameron’s European Union veto.

Danny Alexander, the Lib Dems’ chief negotiator, has managed to raise the threshold for income tax, but that stands as the party’s main achievement.

Unfortunately, Mr Alexander and his colleagues apparently forgot to negotiate it into the coalition agreement, which meant that the Tory rebellion against the proposal went far wider than the usual right-wing malcontents such as David Davis, John Redwood and Bill Cash.

True, David Cameron personally appealed for support but it was clear the Conservative leadership were not willing to force their backbenchers into line on the issue. There was a remarkably soft whipping operation on the Tories, which only adds to Mr Clegg’s humiliation.

The question is, what happens now?

The two parties cannot afford an election. At the moment, it would just put Labour back into power and the Lib Dems could get largely wiped out.

But the Lib Dem leadership are privately saying they will not be backing Tory reforms that come outside the coalition. They have even suggested reneging on the deal to reduce the number of Commons seats and change the boundaries.

What is most likely to happen is that a government that hoped to be reforming – it’s just that the parties wanted it to be reforming in different ways –will largely go into stasis and focus on the economy, which is what brought them together in the first place.

If they can turn the economy around, maybe both will be in good shape for the next election, but if double-dip turns into depression, then the odds on the two parties divorcing early could increase.