Fraser Nelson

I’m at a YouGov conference in Cambridge where we’re just had a speech from Andrew Lansley, the new Leader of the House. He was speaking about the coalition, and gave a brief history of its inception. 'None of us had, in truth, understood the nature of what a coalition government might be...I’m not even sure the Lib Dems had thought about what a coalition would look like. In normal circumstances, with that election result, there would not have been a coalition. We’d have formed a minority government, put forward a programme, challenged the House to support it or not and after a decent interview - probably a few months - we would have had a general election and would have almost certainly won a majority...

Ed Balls has today made his very own full, open and comprehensive offer to the Liberal Democrats – or, rather, to Vince Cable. The shadow chancellor said he could work very well with Vince (but, pointedly, not Nick Clegg). 'I wish George Osborne would see Vince Cable as a man to do business with and listen to, rather than telling the newspapers he is putting his allies in [to the Business department] to try and surround him and hold him back. Vince should be listened to on banking reform and on the economy. I could work with Vince. I would like the Liberal Democrats to say right now that this coalition has failed and we're going to change course.' Balls can't really work with anyone (just ask Ed Miliband); and nor is he likely to have to.

I can't imagine Vince Cable is looking forward to work tomorrow. His new ministerial team,  Michael Fallon and Matthew Hancock, are both Tory reformers who are committed to liberalising the economy and taking a torch to red tape. Precisely the type of activity that Cable usually loves to stand athwart, as he did the Beecroft proposals. Quite a few Tories would like him sacked, but David Cameron has decided to have his Business Secretary restrained instead and has sent in the heavies. Fallon is a fairly serious character. Last year, I was at a party where Fallon accosted a Tory government member and asked him what he had done to make life easier for small businesses. The answer wasn't forthcoming, so Fallon laid into him saying it wasn't any surprise that the economy was not moving.

In Tampa, the Republican conference has heard a line of powerful speakers talk about government debt in compelling and urgent way. There’s a contingent of eight Tories out there, led by party chairman Sayeeda Warsi, but I doubt they’ll be taking many notes. The finely-honed attack lines that the Republicans are coming out are more use to Labour than to the Tories. Take the below, from Paul Ryan’s speech on Wednesday. 'They’ve run out of ideas. Their moment came and went. They were elected in the middle of a crisis, as they constantly remind us, but they’re now making it worse. They have added £11,000 of debt for every man, woman and child in the country. Thousands have graduated from university, ready to use their gifts and get moving in life.

'I am the granddaughter of a Welsh coalminer,' said Ann Romney, as she introduced herself to America last night,  auditioning for the job of First Lady. She did pretty well, and if she were the actual candidate then the Republicans would be home and dry. Whatever her roots, she is now the millionaire owner of an Olympic dressage horse and had to be accepted by a party grassroots which is more on the wavelength of the tea party. 'I read somewhere that Mitt and I have a "storybook marriage",' she said. 'Well, in the storybooks I read, there were never long, long, rainy winter afternoons in a house with five boys screaming at once. And those storybooks never seemed to have chapters called MS or Breast Cancer.

'If we don’t like modern Britain, then it is very unlikely that modern Britain will like us' says Damian Green, in a piece for the Daily Telegraph today. I’m not sure if this is a piece of pre-reshuffle positioning or a cri de coeur, but his analysis is about ten years out of date. Green is not a Notting Hill Tory, he’s part of the group whom Rachel Sylvester once described as the 'Blueberry Hill' Tories — a generation born about the same time as the Fats Domino hit, who got into parliament early enough to see their party spanked by Tony Blair in three general elections. This gave rise to the ‘modernisers’, whose analysis was right for the time. But now, this group seem to be focused on providing ever-better ways to win the 2001 election.

The idea of closing the House of Commons for five years will, I suspect, be popular with those who see in this a chance to move the MPs to a lifeless, European style semi-circular chamber that supposedly encourages them to co-operate. The current Commons chamber is divided by the length of two swords, a deliberately adversarial system. It is a bear pit, rough and merciless. Personally, that’s how I like it, and that’s how it ought to stay. The idea is that moving MPs to another arena would save money as the Palace of Westminster is refurbished. But you can bet a new chamber would be kitted out in ways that suit your average MP: they’d have a chair each, no doubt, and a desk like most other parliaments in the world.