Peter Oborne on the Coalition

Peter Oborne's Telegraph column made painful reading, and I think that the outlook is somewhat brighter than he suggests, but this is well worth a look. In particular:

The whole point about a coalition is that it is like a marriage. Neither party can get all their own way. They have to make sacrifices. That is exactly what happened during the hectic five days that followed the general election last May. It is true that the Lib Dems made certain concessions, of which the most important were their agreement to move faster on deficit reduction and to accept a different settlement on university funding.

But, in return, they secured a large number of hugely significant victories, of which the most important were: an increase in tax allowance to £10,000; much softer policies on short-term prison sentences; the pupil premium; a massive switch of policies on civil liberties; an end to George Osborne’s inheritance tax proposals; and a referendum on the Alternative Vote.