Until recently, it was not uncommon for senior Labour figures to openly speculate about the possibility of working with the Lib Dems in a future coalition. In my interview with him earlier this year, Ed Balls memorably revealed that Nick Clegg was no longer a barrier to an agreement between the two parties and said of the Deputy PM: “I understand totally why Nick Clegg made the decision that he made to go into coalition with the Conservatives at the time. I may not have liked it at the time, but I understood it. I also understood totally his decision to support a credible deficit reduction plan, because it was necessary in 2010. I think the decision to accelerate deficit reduction, compared to the plans they inherited – which was clearly not what Vince Cable wanted – I think that was a mistake . . . I can disagree with Nick Clegg on some of the things he did but I’ve no reason to doubt his integrity.”
Balls went on to attack the Lib Dems for their support for early spending cuts, the reduction in the top rate of tax and the bedroom tax, but his intervention irked those such as Harriet Harman who advocate a strategy of all-out war against Clegg’s party.
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