James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tory coalition

Talk of coalition between parties always reminds people that all political parties are internal coalitions. So all this speculation about Cabinet jobs for the Lib Dems, has set off some grumbling on the right of the Tory party.

The right has long thought that shadow Cabinet is unbalanced. They point out that there are only about three pro-European wets left in the parliamentary party but that they are all in the shadow Cabinet. The view of several people on the right that I have spoken to today is that if there are to be three Lib Dems in the Cabinet then it must be MPs from the left of the party who make way for them, otherwise things would become even more unbalanced.

We might well be getting ahead of ourselves here, there are still many obstacles to a Tory Lib Dem deal. But this is a sign of how the Tory party would have to be managed much more like a coalition than it currently is if the Tories did end up sharing power with the Lib Dems.

 

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