Tory MPs' warning over future of coalition

Backbenchers have voiced unhappiness at suggestions the Tories could enter a non-aggression pact with Liberal Democrats at the next General Election, or even fight the campaign as a coalition.

Wellingborough's MP Peter Bone even suggested the coalition should be ended as soon as the economic crisis is over, and an election called as early as 2012 to give voters a chance to elect a full-blooded Tory government.

And there were rumbles of discontent that coalition Government has meant giving up too much ground to Liberal Democrats on issues such as Europe.

Mid-Bedfordshire MP Nadine Dorries cited a book by Cameron ally Nick Boles arguing for an electoral pact with the Liberal Democrats, as well as a speech by former prime minister Sir John Major calling for the coalition to continue beyond the election, as signs of a concerted effort to continue to extend the lifespan of what many Tories believe should be a strictly temporary cohabitation.

"That's almost strategic – someone new, someone old – and some of us are unhappy about this," she said. "We are not idiots, we know what's happening and we don't want that because there are Conservative issues that we see being subsumed by the coalition."

Mr Bone told Today: "I accept we need a coalition Government until the economic crisis is over and we have dealt with it, but that might be done within the next two years. Then I see no point in the coalition Government at all."

Ms Dorries warned the Tory leadership not to take their backbenches for granted and assume their current restraint from speaking out on "core" Tory issues will go on forever.

But Mr Cameron received a generally warm welcome at a meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs last night