Does it matter what the government is called?

Danny Finkelstein has written an interesting post objecting to Channel 4 referring to the ‘Conservative-led coalition’ last night. Finkelstein’s objection, and a valid one to my mind, is that ‘Conservative-led’ makes a judgment about the nature of the coalition.

Of course, this whole spat has been set off by a clever letter from Ed Miliband’s communications director Tom Baldwin to broadcasters objecting to their use of the word ‘coalition’ to describe the government on the grounds that it implies that the government is a collaborative enterprise.

I suspect that this whole row will rumble on for a while yet. It is tempting to dismiss the whole thing as absurd, as only of interest to a few journalists and spin doctors. But labels do matter. ‘Coalition cuts’ sound better to voters than ‘Tory cuts’ or ’Tory-led cuts’.