Yellow dove down

The Lib Dem dove has been shot by a well-aimed Tory arrow tonight, and you can bet that more than a few of Nick Clegg’s allies will feel deeply betrayed. The Lib Dems walked on the coals of the tuition fee rises, and for what? The Tory leadership cannot really claim to be giving its full backing to Lords reform. Yes, William Hague was sent on the radio this morning – in theory to urge obedience over the reform. But when the Foreign Secretary started laughing you had the feeling that he did not quite take his mission very seriously. Every Tory MP knows that the whips have given mixed messages, and did not tell them that there was no way back if they rebelled. You can’t send the majority of your backbenchers to Siberia. Cameron had to call off the vote in part because he could not afford to be seen to be so weak, to be defied by so many in his party. And he cannot afford to create a whole new generation of rebels.
 
Time was when an MP who defied such an order was told that they were, politically, damned. But the Tories tonight were actually craving this kind of status. If they were going to be damned, then they wanted to be damned. It was shaping up to be the biggest rebellion in the history of the Conservative Party after which the Prime Minister would have struggled to say that he led his party. So Cameron did have a very good excuse. Not that Nick Clegg will be in much of a mood to listen to it.