The tuition fees saga has revealed fault lines in both parties in the Coalition government. There is no need to panic, the future still looks good, but it is a moment to take stock. Things are not as they appear. Let us begin with the Tories.
The Right of the Tory party considers itself the mainstream of the conservative family. It is not. It is a radical wing, which, for its golden age, became mainstream under Margaret Thatcher and also became the majority in the country. This was because socialism and trade union power had over-reached themselves and had run amok in the late seventies. The country was fed up and wanted a fresh start. Thatcher was the right politician in a very particular hour, like Churchill in 1940 and Attlee in 1945. Once that hour passes the public mood changes. Both Attlee and Churchill experienced that. Thatcher was somewhat the author of her own downfall after one of the most successful premierships in British history. The Tory party suffered three election defeats because there was no longer a majority, neither is there yet, for the Right in the UK as a whole. This is why it did not win outright and is in coalition with the Lib Dems.
This is a more interesting combination than at first it appears. The Lib Dem minority is led by pragmatic, rather than ideological, Liberal Democrats. They are not from the purist left wing of their party, who prefer the righteous wilderness to the challenge of power. The Tory majority in the coalition is led by the liberal Conservative tendency of Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill and Macmillan. The important fact to note is that from the formation of the National Government in 1931 under Baldwin, which included the National Liberals who had walked away from Lloyd George, this combination of the liberal/conservative centre consensus held power for 27 of the following 33 years.
Looking into the future the question is this. Will the Lib Dems survive as an independent party or mostly disappear, as the old Liberals did, into either the Conservatives or Labour? Looking back into history, the answer should be yes. This time, however, the answer may be no.
If the country votes for the AV voting system, coalition will be the common structure of government thereafter, as it is in so many countries. The Lib Dems will be able to argue, with much truth, that their presence in the current Coalition prevented the Right of the Tories imposing fiendish austerity upon the vulnerable and ensured the adoption of many progressive and innovative policies. They will be also able to argue that they would, if Labour emerged the stronger, put a break on it producing another spending spree and sprawling over-sized state. The Lib Dems may not be the first choice of anybody, but they could be the second choice of almost everybody. In that case they will do very well. Indeed they could enjoy decades of uninterrupted share of government. To make that prospect real, they must now show that they have the stuffing to help govern and are not genetically a protest party which cannot handle power.
The right of the Tories, on the other hand, have to come to terms with the fact that their Thatcher era ascendancy is history, glorious maybe, but history nonetheless. There is no majority in the country for the pure right in the foreseeable political climate. They will have to get used to being on an important wing of their party, not in the cockpit.