Alex Massie

There's one thing that may be said of Nick Clegg's willingness to talk to Labour: it allowed Labour to show Liberal Democrat MPs that a deal with the Tories is the only show in town worth buying a ticket for. Once Labour MPs vowed to derail any plan to force through voting reform without a referendum and once John Reid, David Blunkett and Andy Burnham pointed out the absurdity of a "Loser's Alliance" that, however constitutionally permissable, would mock the actual, you know, result of the election then even the most sawdust-brained Liberal Democrat MP could appreciate that this bird wouldn't fly. That leaves a proper deal with the Tories the only sensible option - an outcome that I suspect was Clegg's preference all along.

The biggest blunderer today was, I think, Nick Clegg but one can make a case arguing that each of the parties played their hand badly on Monday. Oh, sure, in one sense Labour must be enjoying this: Tories in a fury, Liberals suddenly interested again and, who knows, perhaps there's a faint glimmer of hope that something may yet arrive to rescue the party and keep it in office. But Labour's good mood reflects a short-term tactical stroke, not a strategic victory. Gordon might have wrong-footed the Tories today and damaged prospects for a Tory-Liberal arrangement but that's it. Labour's overall position had not, I suspect, improved greatly not least because, despite all the talk and the hype, it remains difficult to see quite how they really can push through a deal.

So Gordon will go and the Labour party will elect a new leader in time, he hopes, for the Labour party conference this autumn. The problem with a Lib-Lab coalition of course is that it won't have a majority. One can see how it could limp along but one cannot but think that while a single-party could soldier on as a majority matters would be much more problematic for a coalition minority. Nor does including the tiny parties strengthen matters much. And so, playing Salome, Clegg has got Gordon's head on a platter and we now have the extraordinary sight of the Lib Dems negotiating with both parties at the same time.

These are interesting times, aren't they? Interesting but scarcely simple. Nick Clegg may have suggested that a deal must be done by close of play, Monday if it is to be done at all and all the signs may still point to David Cameron coming to an arrangement with the Liberal Democrats but, clearly, difficulties remain. How could it be otherwise given the complexity of the situation and the stakes? Policy is the least of the problem. If one accepts that the old left-right labels are increasingly outmoded and that the defining divide today is between the centralisers and the localists, between the liberal and the statist then, theoretically at least, liberal Tories and true liberals in the Liberal Democrats can do a deal.

That's right. There's a genial irony here. The very same Scottish MPs whose election helped prevent the Conservatives from winning a majority will be the men - and they are mostly men - who will prevent electoral reform. Those English voters who think it unfair that the great phalanx of Labour MPs returned from these chilly northern climes exercise an undue (in their eyes) influence upon the affairs of state might also pause to reflect that the people who will prevent electoral reform may well be those same Scottish Labour members. Not that this stops the deluded left from dreaming of some grand so-called progressive alliance. They're all at it and all utterly detached from reality. Exhibit A: Polly Toynbee. Exhibit B: Jackie Ashley. Exhibit C: The Observer's editorial. Wake up people.

No, not a libertarian government, but an alliance between liberal Tories and Orange Book Liberal Democrats is arguably the closest thing we can get to it. Peter Oborne has a splendid column in the Observer today which makes the key point: Indeed the prime minister and his supporters are wrong to argue today that the Liberal Democrats and Labour have far more in common than Lib Dems and Conservatives. Ideologically, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats share one massive idea. They are both doctrinally suspicious of central government. They favour localism, decentralisation, individual freedom and accountability. The want to destroy the big state and all of its paraphernalia: bureaucracy, secrecy and central control.

The people who need to get over it, of course, are the headbangers on the Tory right. It's not a surprise that Simon Heffer and Lord Tebbit think Cameron a failure, nor that they believe that a set of policies more closely aligned to their own beliefs would have produced a Tory majority of, what, 20?  40? 100? Maybe they are right but I'm not sure they've presented much evidence to support these conclusions. Consider these facts: Cameron's Conservatives won nearly two million more votes than Michael Howard's party managed in 2005. Even if you accept, reasonably, that Labour's record in government ensured they would lose votes it does not follow that those votes could only go to the Tories.