Feel like I win when I lose

Despite all the brickbats (and worse) that have come his way in the past few days, Nick Clegg must sometimes wonder whether it would really be a good idea for the LibDems to have an electoral triumph. Disasters seem to work so well for the party.

In last year's general election, the LibDems won far fewer votes and seats than opinion polls had predicted, finishing in third place. Their reward? Participation in a governing coalition with the Tories, the party's first taste of national power in eighty years.

In last week's local elections, the Lib Dems took a fearful hammering, losing seats and control of local authorities all over the UK. (It's sad but true that UK local election results are almost always viewed as expressions of public sentiment toward the central government at Westminster). The Tories, responsible for far more of the coalition government's policy actions than the LibDems are, increased their vote slightly, while Labour and the Scottish Nationalists performed very strongly. On the same day, the referendum on the alternative vote (AV) system), which the LibDems had strongly supported, was massively defeated.

The reward this time? Far from cutting the beleaguered LibDems adrift from the coalition, the Tories seem to be making nice to them. It looks very much as if the half-baked NHS reform package, one of the main bones of contention between the two parties, may well be jettisoned in order to keep the coalition together.

If problems for the LibDems lead to the abandonment of wrong-headed Tory policies like the NHS reforms, then one can only hope that Clegg's party faces more trials than Job. However, the Tories won't keep indulging ther junior partner indefinitely. For now it suits both sides to keep the coalition going, but as we move toward the next general election (supposedly not before 2014), the calculus will change. If the LibDems continue to flounder in the polls, at some point the Tories will want to distance themselves from the party, either by terminating the coalition deal themselves, or by moving far enough to the right that the LibDems flounce out. At that point, it really will be Waterloo for Nick and his dwindling band of friends.