Aren't Cable and Clegg supposed to be inside the tent, pissing out?

Boasting again

Last week, Theresa May announced that the Home Office was preparing contingency plans to stop the next wave of economic migrants flooding into Britain when Greece (rapidly followed by Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland) are forced out of the Euro.

The fact that Mrs May seems incapable of stopping unwelcome immigrants entering the country right now is neither here nor there – I’m sure a system that hasn’t worked for years will magically begin to work perfectly by the time the Eurozone bids a not-so-fond farewell to Greece.

This morning, Nick Clegg showed his party’s usual unstinting support for coalition policies by stating: “This breathless talk of pulling up a drawbridge is far-fetched, apocalyptic and deeply unhelpful.” (Great liberal wank-word, unhelpful - it usually signals that someone has uttered a truth that undermines the speaker's view of what they'd like to be true be true.)

Just to underline the Libdems’ commitment to the coalition of which – last time I looked – they were a (minor) part, Vince Cable (who else?) announced that what’s left of his markedly detumescent party would withdraw from the coalition before the next general election, so that both parties could create separate identities. (Actually, Vince, you needn’t bother – the Libdems stand for all the rubbishy social-engineering ideas that haven’t worked since they were first dreamt up in 1789, and the Tories stand for… well, nothing at all at the moment, actually.)

I was brooding about this as I watched England win the second test against the West Indies this afternoon. Imagine you’re batting and the batsmen at the non-striker’s end is Vince Cable. The ball crashes into your pads and you hear a loud cry of “Howzat!”, only to look up and discover that it’s Vince Cable who made the appeal against you, rather than the opposition (they thought it was missing leg stump).

Or you’re a bowler and Nick Clegg is your wicket-keeper. You knock out the batsman’s middle stump and he’s starting to walk – only for an amazed hush to fall over the ground as Clegg demands a DRS review. “I think that appeal was far-fetched and unhelpful,” he announces. “The ball was clearly too high.”

Is this how coalition partners behave in other countries, even when the leader of one party is El Presidente and the leader of the other party is his or her deputy? Is our current government so chronically dysfunctional partly because we haven’t yet figured out how coalitions are supposed to work? (Obviously the main problem is that David Cameron is tactically inept, displays rotten judgment when it comes to key appointments, despises Conservatives, doesn’t have a strategy, and has no fundamental political beliefs to guide him.)

I know it’s tempting to sneer and shrug and pretend the fewer whizzy new policies governments are able to implement, the better off we’d be – and that’s undoubtedly true when you’ve got social peace, non-porous borders and a strong economy. But when – as now – the West is teetering on the verge of economic Armageddon, your own country had just entered into another recession, you owe cosmic sums of money, you no longer have any borders to speak of, and the natives are distinctly restless, the things you need are clarity of vision and decisive action.

The very last thing you need are colleagues who, having agreed to share your tent, can’t seem to grasp the simple point that they’re now supposed to piss in an outward direction rather than directly onto the fire that their hosts have desperately (and ineptly) been trying to keep alight.

Rum lot, the Libdems. And a very horrible bunch. Still, let’s console ourselves with the thought that they’ll be destroyed once and for all at the next general election – if they manage to last that long.

Meanwhile, if anyone knows whether or not this is how coailition partners are supposed to behave, please do let me know.