Foreign Perspectives

Despite the last minute wobbles, I suspect that this could prove to be one of the most stable of partnerships.

Why? Well, because for the first time in a very long time it will give the Liberals experience in government. One of the problems that they have had in recent times has been in convincing people that they had the strength to take part in government. It’s all very well standing on the sidelines in opposition and putting forward all kinds of ideas when you know that you will never have to take responsibility for implementing them. Taking an idea from the original concept through to implementation is something quite different and it’ll be interesting how the coalition takes to that.

So, at least in the medium term, there’ll be quite an incentive from the Liberals to make this work. On the other side of the fence, the Conservatives will have the advantage of having intimate access to the Liberal party’s ideas machine which has had the advantage of not having to worry about implementing their ideas and therefore has often came up with good ideas that would have been rejected at early stages by the other two main parties. Not all of those ideas will be workable but many of them may well be.

What will be a problem is the time about three years from now when the lights of the oncoming election will be seen. That pre-election period is going to be “interesting” for both parties and the working of the government generally.