I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

It may, I suppose, be possible to feel a twinge of pity for Nick Clegg over his latest, and arguably greatest, humiliation at the hands of the Bullingdon Club. Now that Daveybloke has reneged on his promise of support for the Deputy Conservatives' pet project of constitutional reform, Wee Nicky has at last felt obliged to impose sanctions: "Clearly I cannot permit a situation where Conservative rebels can pick and choose the parts of the contract they like," he said, "while Liberal Democrat MPs are bound to the entire agreement."

In the reality-based world, of course, the Deputy Conservatives have felt themselves no more bound by the coalition agreement than the most demented of Daveybloke's backwoodsmen. The coalition agreement promised to restore the right to protest, and the right to protest has not been restored; the Deputy Conservatives have happily gone along. The coalition agreement promised to repair the economy, and the economy is in worse shape than ever; the Deputy Conservatives are going along. The coalition agreement promised to stop the disruptive top-down reorganisations of the NHS which had done so much damage to patient care; Wee Nicky himself, with puppyish enthusiasm, personally tore that one up so that Twizzler Lansley's feelings wouldn't be hurt; the NHS has been subjected to a chaotic top-down reorganisation, patient care is being damaged, and the Deputy Conservatives have grumbled a bit and continued to warm the Government benches. What is a mere scrap of paper compared with all those nice red boxes?

Nevertheless, Wee Nicky has decided that his present abjection may be more than even the Deputy Conservatives can comfortably sit through; so he is ordering them to vote against the planned Great Daveymander, thus wrecking all possibility of any major constitutional reform during the present parliament. "Coalition works on mutual respect," he quipped sadly, then went on: "it is a reciprocal arrangement, a two-way street." Apparently Wee Nicky is unaware that when both parties are driving hard right with all the speed they can muster, the concept of a two-way street becomes a little redundant. It may, I suppose, be possible to feel a twinge of pity; but only in softer hearts than mine.