Or at least he is trying to blink. Whether his party lets him is another matter. Word reaches Uncut from the yellow side of the fence that the Lib Dem leadership are engaged a tentative operation to defuse the bomb they carefully primed, and pull back from vetoing the Tories new parliamentary boundaries.
It had been assumed that the Lib Dems would take their revenge on the Tories for sinking Lords reform by blocking the new parliamentary constituency boundaries. But, after some emollient words from the prime minister earlier in the day, a commitment to get something through in Autumn and perhaps an extra biscuit with his cup of tea, Nick Clegg wants to work it out with the Tories.
Talk of tit for tat retaliation is being played down as the Lib Dems and Tory press teams try to pin the blame on Labour before the watching gallery of aghast Lib Dem activists.
Clegg still has his eye on passing a Lords reform bill in the Autumn, either stripped down to resemble Lord Steel’s token effort at reform or potentially something more ambitious with a firm commitment to a referendum after the first election to the new chamber but before the second.
Why the emboldened Tory rebels would put down their cudgels in three months is unclear. Certainly there’s no love lost for David Cameron who was being openly ridiculed by jubilant rebels as they celebrated in the bars of Westminster.
But Clegg still thinks he can salvage his legacy with a constitutional bill that could nominally have the prefix ‘historic’ appended, and as a result, David Cameron seems to have been granted the benefit of the doubt from his junior partner yet again.
The next 24 hours will determine whether Nick Clegg can sell his conciliation to the beaten and battered Lib Dems or whether this time, there will actually be a yellow reckoning with the Tories, regardless of Nick Clegg’s dreams of the history books.
Tags: David Cameron, Lords reform, Nick Clegg, parliamentary boundaries review
Ha ha… they aren’t believing anything that Eton Boy says, are they?
Talk about naive. Cameron may have been gotten rid of by then. 100 people defy him…100 people for whom the threat “I will block your career” means nothing because they know he won’t be around long enough to block their career and the right winger to follow (Gove? Fox?) will be happy to put them on the ministerial ladder for undermining Cameron.
There are more important things in life than a full belly … and that is HoL Reform.
Why? Because the HoL can emsculate a Bill from the Commons so that it amounts to nothing just because some Landed Gentry think it will impact on their Estates and Income and Inheritance. Thats why this is a good atime as any for Reform.