This photograph must be one of the most politically fortuitous ever taken. As the three party leaders attended a VE Day ceremony in Westminster today, Gordon Brown looks to his left, David Cameron to the right, and Nick Clegg straight ahead, wondering if he might manage to get more than one Liberal into the Cabinet.
Churchill was the last prime minister to include Liberals in a coalition, when he invited Sir Archibald Sinclair to serve as Secretary of State for Air. He was the last British Liberal to hold Cabinet rank office.
If David Cameron succeeds in forging a Con-Lib alliance, we will probably see at least three Liberal Democrats sitting around the Cabinet table: Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and...
Well, whoever they are, three Conservatives will be dumped to make way.
But that's politics.
It would be far worse under Proportional Representation.
It is curious that those who favour PR are desperate about this interregnum and period of uncertainty. Do they not realise that every election under PR is followed by days if not weeks of 'horse-trading' and 'shabby, back-room deals'.
Perhaps someone remind Nick Clegg that he said just a few years ago that he would 'never join a Labour or Tory cabinet'.
Wonder what changed his mind?
