A short observation that’s nonetheless to long for a simple tweet.
Think the current coalition is a bad idea? Have a read of this post on Conservative Home about the “concession-o-meter” and don’t forget to also look at the comments. In fact, have a flick through all of Conservative Home.
Then consider this: No coalition would have meant several months of direction-less government, followed by a fairly inevitable second General Election. Which the Conservatives might have won. Yes, we could well have been five months into a Tory-only government by now. What do we think they would have done, left to their own devices?
As one self-proclaimed “LibDem member” put it in the comments on that article: “Long may the tugging hard continue. A pure Conservative government is a horrible thought.“
I like this post!
The duplicate comment error message is really ugly.
And, of course, as Tim Farron said in his conference speech, refusing a coalition would make us seem too scared for power.
Giving supply and confidence to Labour would’ve been tantamount to stealing an election.
Effectively, we were screwed in the short term at 10:01pm on polling day.
That was very well put!
I agree with you in that a purely Tory government would certainly have been worse (just as a purely Labour government would have been worse, in my opinion). I can’t see that the LibDems had any choice but to enter into a coalition with one of the parties and to do the best they could within the constraints of that situation.
My only concerns are related to the long-term effect on how the electorate views the LibDems. Will the average voter be able to understand that the LibDems had a strong moderating influence on the Tories and will the Tories be effective in trying to blame the LibDems for their coalition’s failures?