UK journalists really are ignorant about ho coalitions work.

Jackie Ashley in the Guardian today displays a real lack of understanding about how coalition politics can work. Some of what she says is just plain ignorant. Here's my response, another small 'c' conservative Guardian journalist displaying their utter incomprehension about how coalition politics works. Jackie Ashley, like many at the Guardian, just doesn't seem to be able to get her head around the idea that coalition politics is about compromise.

So imagine if all those left-leaning voters produced a Cameron-led government?

So what if they did? We're not talking about a Tory government, we're talking about a coalition. Many on the left are fed up with Labour because of social and liberty issues, if a Lib-Con coalition can scrap ID cards, and give us our freedom back, many on the left would be happy with that, even if they don't like the coalition's economic policies.

What would the Lib Dem grassroots make of it all?

What indeed? The Lib-Dem grass roots are in fact the most enthusiastic about PR, and PR would mean always having coalition governments. In fact PR would mean that the Lib-Dems would sometimes be in government with Labour, sometimes with the Tories and sometimes in opposition. Lib-Dems understand that because they support PR. Is that a difficult concept to understand?

First, he has let it be known he has an open mind about some kind of electoral reform. I think it's a honey-trap and that the Conservatives would block change.

You don't seem to understand how politics would work in a coalition. The Lib-Dems have already forced the Conservatives to move on PR by showing that they may well hold the balance of power. Coalition politics will always be a negotiation between parties, if there is a Lib-Con coalition then the parties will be partners, not adversaries. If a deal were made then a reform of the electoral system would be government policy. It was claimed in Wales that a referendum on increasing the powers of the NAfW was a "honey trap" by Labour to get Plaid support. But guess what, now we're going to have that referendum. The Lib-Dems must make sure that any coalition has a properly negotiated agreement before entering, like Plaid did with it's One Wales agreement. But reform of the electoral system will itself be a negotiation, the Lib-Dems want STV, but we might get something else because the Tories might have their own ideas. Whatever we get it must be much more proportional that what we now have. I think AV+ is out of the question as not proportional enough for the Lib-Dems, but the Tories might favour MMP or some such system.

The more I look at the prospect of a Con-Lib coalition, the more I think it is not sustainable for long.

It depends how much good faith there is, right? If one party or the other is negotiating in bad faith, and is not prepared to compromise, then it can't work. The Tories will have to understand that a coalition with the Lib-Dems is not synonymous with Lib-Dem support for an entirely Tory programme. Most politicians know this though, most have worked with politicians from other parties in the past, it's only for show that they take these diametrically opposed stances because the electoral system demands that politicians pretend that they hold no views in common whatsoever. If anything the debates have helped demolish that by showing Cameron agreeing with Both Brown and Clegg. But even if a Tory/Lib-Dem coalition fails, then the question is, do we have another election, or does the Labour party try to form a government with the Lib-Dems? If the Lib-Dems hold the balance of power, and a Tory/Lib-Dem coalition fails, there is no call for a new election, the Labour Party would be within it's rights to try to form a government with the Lib-Dems. Of course it'd be up to the Queen in the end, if Cameron dissolved the coalition and demanded the dissolution of parliament, the Queen could say no (especially very early on in the parliament), and ask the new leader of the Labour Party to try and form a government. This happened in Ireland, right? With their Rainbow Coalition.