Will this pantomime horse of a coalition really work?

IT WILL take more than super-glue to hold this coalition together. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are not natural bedfellows. And even men and women of the utmost goodwill will surely find it an immense burden to share government with people whose political instincts are diametrically opposed to their own.

Some commentators today have greeted the new arrangement with something not far short of foreboding. One described it as "a pantomime horse", but conceding it was the only horse in town.

Others have drawn attention to the fact that Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader "like the harlot down the ages" as he has been described, flitting between one potential client (Gordon Brown) and the other (David Cameron) to see which of the two offered the better deal. This was seen, in the minds of some people, as demonstrating a lack of trustworthiness on the part of the Liberal Democrats and an opportunistic bid to seize the main chance.

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But Clegg, finding himself as kingmaker - despite his protestations to the contrary - could hardly be blamed for trying to extract what he could from whichever party would take him aboard.

Some Labour grandees, including David Blunkett and John Reid, warned that it would be disastrous if their party coalesced with the Liberal Democrats because, they feared, the electorate would wreak a terrible revenge on them at the next election.

And some Conservative "elder statesmen", like Lord Tebbit, tried unsuccessfully to induce Cameron to take the plunge and go it alone.

Coalitions may be relatively commonplace in parts of the European mainland, but there is no appetite for them in this country, except in circumstances of immense crisis, like wartime, or when, as on this occasion, the arithmetic offers virtually no other option.

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The most recent attempt at a loose - and it was no more than that - coalition was the Lib-Lab pact of the late 1970s, when James Callaghan's Labour Government lost its majority, and reached a deal with the Liberals, under David Steel. Under the agreement, which was opposed by some members of the Liberal Party, the Government would consult the Liberals on major issues.

But that arrangement lasted for only a matter of months and ultimately Callaghan was beaten on a no confidence vote in 1979 to allow the Tories to regain power for the next 18 years.

It cannot be said, that apart from in wartime, coalitions, or their near equivalents, have been a dazzling success in this country. They have not. And nor has this latest coalition been greeted with a fanfare and a roll of drums. But men and women of goodwill will surely wish it a fair wind.

It is almost exactly 70 years since the last coalition came into being.

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That was on May 10 1940 - Winston Churchill's wartime coalition, with Labour leader Clement Attlee as his deputy. It was a coalition that, inevitably, had its internal tensions, but it achieved its objective: victory over Adolf Hitler.

A few days after its formation, Churchill explained its purpose in the House of Commons with these words: "You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never before surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.

"You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory."

A similar coalition, under Lloyd George, was formed during the First World War.

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There have been only two peacetime coalitions in the United Kingdom over the past century: from 1918 to 1922, also under Lloyd George, in the aftermath of the Great War - it was ended by a rebellion of Tory MPs as it "lingered on increasingly rudderless" according to one observer at the time - and the National Government from 1931 to 1935 to combat the economic crisis.

But since then Liberal Democrats have governed with Labour in both Scotland and Wales since devolution.

The United Kingdom as a whole seems to have an antipathy towards coalitions, and there were some senior figures in both the Conservative and Labour parties who tried to persuade their leaders not to enter into one with the Liberal Democrats.

In February 1974, after that general election had produced a stalemate, prime minister Edward Heath - although winning fewer seats for the Tories than Labour had achieved - tried to form a coalition with the Liberal Party under Jeremy Thorpe.

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But his blandishments failed and Harold Wilson returned to 10 Downing Street.

Disraeli put the case against coalitions succinctly: "England does not love coalitions."

Herbert Asquith was more scathing about them. He said: "Nothing is so demoralising to the tone of public life, or so belittling to the stature of public men."