Is this a happy ending after all for Cameron and Clegg?

Whew. Sighs of relief and trebles all round at Collard Towers (aka the Lancaster Lubyanka). For a moment we were almost convincing ourselves that the wild and wacky idea of the Progressive Alliance, or Uncle Tom Cobbleigh coalition, might actually fly. And it seemed that the Tories did too; my, my, weren’t they angry and abusive about the man with whom they’re now going to find themselves working? It’s now clear, as it should have been all along, that Clegg was just firing a shot across Cameron’s bows by flirting so outrageously with Labour. The green-eyed monster was duly roused, and it looks as though jealous Dave will after all be consummating his inter-species marriage with the creature my son calls “the Long-Legged Cleggy-Weggy”.

For it was clear that the “Progressive Alliance” idea was principally of value as an irritant for Tories with a sense of entitlement. (Let me repeat: 306 seats out of 650 does not constitute what the Chinese would call the Mandate of Heaven.) After we discovered, even before the election, that Dave was prepared to buy Ulster Unionist support by promising exemption from spending cuts for Northern Ireland, it was rather nice to be able to come back at them with what would have been similar offers to the Scots and Welsh. But it clearly would not have been a winner in even the medium term; the Tories would have whipped up enormous resentment in England, and one could hardly have blamed them. Such a broad coalition would have been inherently unstable, and even if it had held together it could not but have made itself intensely unpopular.

No – let the Tories and Lib Dems take the strain. No less a personage than Mervyn King pointed out that this election was not a bad one to lose. If the new Government proves a stunning success and pulls us out of economic misery, both parties will receive electoral credit – and they’ll deserve it. But few would bet the ranch on that. Far more likely that it will all end in tears and recriminations. While this may not hurt the Tories too badly – Tories are ineradicable, like weeds – the Lib Dems are on the most terrific hiding to nothing.

In half the country they will be regarded as Tories Mark II. In Scotland and Wales, which are unlikely to do particularly well out of the new dispensation, they will face obliteration, despite their long traditions there. They could be forced back on positioning themselves as the enlightened element of the comfortable English bourgeoisie. And what price their hard-won successes in Burnley or Redcar then?

And we in Labour? Well, as defeated parties always say, we’ll renew ourselves in opposition. It might well be the best place to manage the transition from the Blair/Brown generation to its successors. If this strange coalition works, we’ll accept it gracefully for the sake of the jobs it had better create. If not – well, guess who’ll pick up the pieces?