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Coalition Government

If the AV referendum goes through, more people may well vote Green or for the nationalist parties and so on, and it may well be that over a number of elections other parties will rise up the electoral ladder so that they can, as a minority party, be in competition with the Liberal Democrats. At the moment, the Liberal Democrats are the only feasible coalition partner that we can envisage in ordinary circumstances. However, if AV came about, other parties might grow sufficiently strong to be potential coalition partners. That is all I meant and I am sorry if I did not articulate it very well. The thrust of what I am saying is that I think that it will be much better for the legitimacy of any future coalition to avoid purely post-election deals which would arise out of the third party claiming to be equidistant between the two major parties competing for government. That is bound to lead to questions about the legitimacy of the coalition-making process and the sort of document that we have at the moment, which, according to the Business Secretary, supersedes any of the manifestos. I think that that is highly unfortunate and that we need to be much more explicit with the electorate about those with whom deals are going to be made.