Progressive Alliance, though not as Blair planned it

British politics will never be the same again. Instead of the some 'progressive' anti-Tory alliance of losers we have a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition with a joint cabinet, planning for a five-year fixed term. This is a major realignment, but not from the left to the centre, it is from the right to the centre, pushing old, tired tribal Labour out to the margins. Of course, it didn't have to be this way, but Tony Blair lost all enthusiasm for cosying up to the Liberal Democrats as soon as he obtained a large parliamentary majority and Gordon Brown simply hated them. Apparently, he never forgave those who left Labour for the SDP, and then went on to the Liberal Democrats. In another demonstration of his tribalism, Brown always referred the Liberal Democrats as the 'Liberals' as a calculated insult to any former Labour members in that party. This, amongst other things, scuppered any chance of a deathbed Lib/Lab pact to keep him in power. It is too late to start being nice to people when you want something from them after years of showering them with petty abuse.

There is another point about the failed attempt at a Liberal/Labour coalition. This was the last charge of Blair's apparatchiks. Peter Mandleson and Alastair Campbell are both proven serial liars. Neither are elected and both would have personally benefited from the walking zombie of a Labour-led, cobbled-together coalition, damaging as that would have been for the country. So, they talked Brown into a cynical promise to resign and tried to bounce their party into a nasty little deal. Fortunately, for both the country and the Labour party wiser heads prevailed, with MPs and Cabinet Members telling Mandleson and Campbell where to get off. Otherwise we would have had a weak, cynical government presided over by a loser and hostage to minor party interests. That it would have laid the ground for a Conservative landslide at the next election would not have compensated for the damage it would have done to Britain as we struggled to tackle Labour's debt mountain.

Hopefully that is the last we shall see of those two clowns.