The making of the coalition

David Cameron was despondent on the evening of 10 May. Although the election result was pretty much as he had predicted privately, he feared that his ‘big, open and comprehensive offer’ of coalition with the Liberal Democrats was about to be rejected in favour of a deal with Labour. When we talked that night he feared another spell in opposition, and he ended by suggesting I went into the office the next day since he would have time on his hands.

But as we spoke, the Lib Dem negotiating team was reporting back to Nick Clegg on another disastrous set of discussions with Labour, ensuring that long-held hopes of the so-called ‘progressive alliance’ were shrivelling by the hour. Even Vince Cable accepted the reality of the situation. So the next day passed in feverish activity as the coalition agreement was sealed, and that evening Mr Cameron and his hastily summoned wife were clapped out of his office on their way to the Palace. After 13 years, the Conservatives were back in Downing Street in the most unlikely circumstances.

The excitement of those febrile five days is captured in these two fine accounts of the birth of the coalition. Both read almost like thrillers, such were the twists and turns as sleep-deprived men and women played a game of poker with the highest stakes imaginable. Unlike many books by politicians, they are stuffed with nuggets of genuine revelation, although some of the biggest questions remain unsolved.

Since David Laws was one of the central figures, 22 Days in May is inevitably the more absorbing, despite a slightly bland writing style and failure adequately to explain his sudden downfall. The book is designed to set in stone the Lib Dem case that there was no alternative to joining the Conservatives in full-blown coalition.