This morning’s press conference by David Cameron and Nick Clegg marked an attempt to scotch all the talk of the coalition moving to confidence and supply sometime before the next election. Cameron declared that he was more committed to the coalition than he was back in 2010. He also stressed that he believed Britain needed stable government ‘throughout this term’, an implicit rebuke to all those Tories talking about a move to minority government in 2014.
Nick Clegg, for his part, spoke about how this was going to be a ‘proper coalition government for a full five years’. There was also an announcement that the coalition’s mid-term review will set out some new priorities for the government as well as just assessing the progress made to date on implementing the initial coalition agreement.
But, as both leaders know by now, Cameron and Clegg are not the only people in this relationship. They might have pulled back from the brink. But the question is, have their parties?
Notably, both Cameron and Clegg dodged Nick Robinson’s question asking them to say that any Lib Dem who voted against boundary changes would be sacked and any Tory who did so against Lords reform would not be promoted. Finding a deal on Lords and boundaries that satisfies honour on both sides, still looks remarkably difficult.
The real test, though, of Cameron and Clegg’s words today will come at their respective party conferences. Will they insist, or be able to, that their parties keep up the pro-coalition tone at those events? Or, will the Tories fall back into talking about what they would do on their own and the Liberal Democrats return to emphasising what they’ve stopped the Tories from doing?
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