Sweating

There has been a fair bit of sweating in the last few days. Sweating from Gordon Brown over whether he had a future (I'm afraid not Gordon, go and have a long lie down, you deserve it). Sweat from David Cameron as to whether his grand project would founder on a minority Government where he had to defer to every right-wing psychopath on his backbenches to get through even the smallest piece of legislation. Sweating from the LibDems as to whether their wider party would back whatever deal they made with the Tories.

That's a lot of sweat.

It's not over. The Whig's "triple lock" device to stop over-mighty leaders jumping into bed with the wrong people on the wrong terms (or even the right people on the wrong terms) might have been partially negotiated (the parliamentary party and the national exec have backed Clegg) but the leader has decided that he wishes to consult the third part of the lock (the wider party) even though he doesn't have to.

Why? More sweat?

Nick Clegg knows the problem he's going to have selling this deal. He thinks he's got a good one but knows that any deal with the Tories is uncomfortable for his supporters, and that therefore any deal he makes might turn out to be not quite enough for them.

Now, LibDem voters might be disappointed by a deal with the Tories, but Clegg may be wagering that voters don't get anywhere near the Tory hating levels of actual party members. They hate them with a fiery passion that would make a Labour supporter blush with shame at their own pluralism. So the party - appropriately - become the miners' canaries, chirping happily if everything is fine, or dropping dead out of sheer disgust if the deal on the table is insufficient to compensate for the horror of seeing their boys in a cabinet with Theresa May and Liam Fox in it.

If the party membership can wear it, Clegg might think, anyone will. And if they don't, he can still walk away without actually having shafted anyone. And that's worth a bit more sweat.

technical entry for May 2 2010