The Tories should stop their silly games about a second coalition

Tactically, strategically and constitutionally, it's utter madness for the Prime Minister to rule out another coalition, says Tim Bale. David Cameron's "big, open and comprehensive offer" to the Lib Dems in May 2010 was for many Right-wing Tories the ultimate confirmation of a long-held belief that their leader really wasn't "one of us". Rather than entering No 10 at the head of a heroic minority Conservative government, the Prime Minister had chosen instead to pursue the path of modernising centrism that had lost his party the election in the first place. It was bound to end in tears. The only upside was that the Cameroons would soon realise the error of their ways - and that nothing like this would ever be attempted again. Suggestions that Mr Cameron wants to rule out another coalition in the run-up to the next election and make it clear instead that he will lead a minority government would appear to confirm their analysis. If true, it would constitute a comprehensive trashing of the liberal/compassionate Conservative brand that Cameron tried to build after taking over the leadership in 2005, and mark a retreat to the self-obsessed, Right-wing laager from which he tried so hard to rescue a party that had, after 1997, lost three general elections on the trot.