Just Our Cup of Tea

All parties are coalitions.  The   coalition currently governing the United Kingdom is  only slightly unusual because some of its constituent parts are organised formally into different parties -   and   that too  occurred sufficiently frequently in the last century to be  catered for in our governing practices.   These formal coalitions  tend to occur in times of great political stress, and we should have been much less  surprised when  the  regime run by Brown generated  fracture along such socioeconomic stress lines, and huge political bitterness  rather than co-operation between the various sectors of society;  add in  that regime's truly remarkable ignorance of the effects of socialist policies, even   'by stealth and renamed' socialist and redistributive policies, and a 'coalition government in time of need' response was duly delivered by a democratically mature electorate.

It would have been no use delivering a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition.  In that case the Liberal Democrats'  left-of-centre  dominant strain  would have been  readily absorbed by a left-of-centre  dominated coalition  and the disaster being produced by  interference with market capitalism  and gross levels of  government expenditures would have been further embedded into the state itself (and with all that  brings for individual liberties and freedom).

A right of centre coalition with  the Liberal Democrats pulling to the left  was a considerable coup by the electorate.  As the infiltrating left, the descendents of the Gang of Four, howl and wail their way back  towards the Labour party they so  disgracefully tried to derail  from its trades unions and the disadvantaged track,  we are able to see the real  Liberals, reduced in number but  strengthened in commitment, containing the undeniably nastier parts of the Conservative  diaspora.

 It is a misinterpretation  of  current politics to see this containment (and the departure of Labour-supporting Democrats) as  a breakdown in the Coalition government and/or the end of the Liberal party.  What we have is a   sophisticated and dynamic politicoeconomic response to a government  and a debased party that  was a terrible threat to our democracy and our standards of living.