I agree with Luke…

There are probably almost as many things that divide myself and Luke Akehurst than there are those things we would agree on, but I reckon on this, he has got it absolutely spot on… The remarkable cheek of Nick Clegg

Journalists and pundits were quick to point out in 2010 how shabby the Lib Dems would appear if they had entered in to coalition with a Labour Party which had just lost such a large proportion of its support at a General Election. It appears almost certain now that the Lib Dem percentage of the vote will collapse at the next election, and it would be equally shabby if Labour decided to form a government with a party that had been rejected by the electorate.

History points to the Tory share of the vote being reduced at the next election. Since 1955 only one government saw their share of the vote increase at the next general election. Not Thatcher in her 1983 landslide, not Blair in 2001… but Harold Wilson when in 1974 after failing to secure a majority in February, went back to the country again in October of that year. That shows the scale of the problem the Tories face next time round. Parties in government do things which are unpopular, and their share of the vote falls.

So, if Cameron is running against the tide, and Clegg is sniffing around in an attempt to get his size 9's back under the Cabinet table in 2015, Labour should, as Luke says…

…work flat out for an overall majority so that the unhappy and tawdry experience of coalition we are having now is a one-off.

We should instead form a minority government as we did in 1923, 1929 and February 1974. We might also be able to form a government with some combination of the SNP, Plaid Cymru or Northern Ireland parties, before having to contemplate resuscitating the defeated Lib Dems. The option of a “confidence and supply” deal to sustain a minority government would be preferable to allowing Lib Dems to keep ministerial jobs when the electorate had rejected them.