Britannist

Yes, the Liberal Dims were in a coalition with the Labour Party in Edinburgh for eight years but there is a difference between the Lib/Lab coalition in Edinburgh which existed up to May of this year and any such coalition at Westminster:

The Liberal Dims would be under more electoral pressure if they were in coalition with Labour in the House of Commons because most of the seats the Liberal Dims have/would have in the Commons would be highly marginal Lib Dim-Conservative seats which would be vulnerable to going back to the Conservatives. Anti-Labour Conservatives who may have voted Liberal 'Democrat' in those constituencies would be angry that the Lib Dims were keeping Labour in power. In the Scottish Parliament fewer Liberal Dims have Conservatives 'breathing down their necks' in their constituencies than do Liberal Dim MPs in the House of Commons.

This pressure on the Liberal Dims in the House of Commons from the Conservatives would put strains on any Lib/Lab Pact or formal coalition.

Britannist

If the europhile Liberal Dims do anything to stop such an amendment on a referendum then the Conservatives and other anti-EU people should leaflet every house/flat in the land to inform voters that the Dim Libs were helping Labour deny us a say on the EU Constitution version 2.

Britannist

The more Liberal Dim Party MPs who lose their seats at the next General Election the better it will be for the country. I notice that Clegg's seat (Sheffield Hallam) is not safe and his europhile colleague 'Chris' Huhne MP has a majority at Eastleigh of just over 500 votes.

The immediate feedback regarding this week's Prime Minister's Question Time (shown live on BBC 2) was that Clegg - in his first performance at Prime Minister's Question Time as leader of his party - was poor. One person even called it "amateur".