Tribal Politics
One trouble, out of many, of the first past the post system is that it is not only designed for two adversarial parties, but it leads to tribal politics, historically based on ideology. People proudly declare they have voted for a particular party all their lives. There will therefore have been times when they were voting for bad policies as well as good ones.
With multi-party politics there is a different culture. Here the division is caused by issues, policies and personalities. All of theses have to match up to gain support. The drive is not to seek dissent but to find accord. When coalition agreements are negtotiated, they are about agendas and policies on which all agree, at least for the post part. There is a greater feeling of us than there is of them.
In this country our national politics are tribal and it is for this reason that there will be some very emotional people in both Tory and Lib Dem ranks. Yet Cameron has an affinity with Clegg, describing himself as a Liberal Conservative, on the Andrew Marr Show today. That could be one of the most profound statements made in a political generation. It will be interesting to see where it leads. Not into the arms of Lord Tebbit, that’s for sure.
The other thing about multi-party politics is that the smaller parties do switch sides. It is perfectly possible for the Lib Dems to go with the Tories this time, but with Labour next time. This would be more likely with Milliband David than Milliband Ed. There would be howls of treachery from the tribal heartlands but the message would be that the days of tribes are over. Cameron and Clegg see that. Many of their followers do not.