Calm waters for Coalition but it’s choppy ahead

12 April 2012

Five centuries ago, sailors headed west without knowing if they would end up as rulers of a New World, drown or tumble off the edges of a flat earth.

The formation of the Coalition 100 days ago was just such an embarkation, with no maps or rules, into a terrifying uncharted region marked with the legend: "Here Be Monsters".

Yet it has worked — so far. Astonishingly, magically, happily, the ship is holding together, despite a few groaning timbers and some open disputes over direction.

Those Tories (a majority of David Cameron's MPs) who assumed European-style power sharing must mean fudge and inaction had a revelation in George Osborne's boldness in attacking the deficit with the detoxifying added ingredient of Lib-Dem support.

Nick Clegg's team have their bottoms on ministerial leather benches for the first time and, empowered by a truly extraordinary written contract between the two leaders, enjoy the right to be consulted on every important policy.

Whitehall officials love it. Gone is the secrecy and mobile phone smashing of the Gordon Brown era. For the first time in years, Downing Street knows what the Treasury is up to.

And the public seems to be happy. A YouGov poll this week found six in 10 thought the Lib-Dems had abandoned their principles by setting sail with the Conservatives. But exactly the same proportion felt it was exactly the proper thing for the party to do.

But this has been the easiest 100 days the Coalition will ever enjoy. Ahead lies the reality of spending and benefits cuts, job losses, possible falls in house values and, at some point, the re-emergence of Labour from its leaderless navel gazing to become a proper Opposition.

And anxiety about the polls and the cuts is eating away at the Lib-Dems like Teredo worm in a ship's planking. Hence, Nick Clegg is devoting his two weeks "holding the fort" to talking up his party's influence over policies such as social mobility. He had a phone chat with US vice-president Joe Biden last night, covering Afghanistan and other global issues. But is Clegg just the political equivalent of Blackpool FC, which led the Premiership for a brief hour or two before the big teams pushed them aside?

In spare moments, David Cameron frets about the fall in the Lib-Dem support, down to 12 per cent in one recent poll but 18 per cent in an ICM survey today. At some point, he knows, the flotilla will separate.

Next month's party conference; town hall elections next May; the outcome of the referendum on voting reform — all these could break the Coalition apart.

But nobody, not even the PM and the deputy, have any clue where they will end up. And that is what makes their Magical Mystery Tour the most thrilling political journey for a generation.

Whitehall and public seem happy — for now. In prospect are cuts, job losses and Labour's Opposition comeback

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