How coalitions should work

This morning's (March 18) news that a deal has been done over post Leveson press regulation is a welcome development as there was a danger that it would go the way of Lords reform where all agreed on the need for a change, but nothing happened because they could not agree on the precise nature of that reform. Whatever the merits of this agreement it seems to be a good model for how coalition government should work, as opposed to how it has been working. The Liberal Democrats, for once, put their money where their mouth is and stood their ground. The government, recognising that its policy was in a minority, accepted a compromise. In other words coalition may have been successful in achieving consensus, rather than simply highlighting the differences within government and demonstrating the weakness of the junior partner. It may have been an exercise in brinkmanship, but the truth is that brinkmanship often works, as has been seen recently in Scotland and in the USA.