Britain has had a Conservative prime minister for the past 13 years, but a majority Conservative government for less than half that time. David Cameron spent his first term in Downing Street at the head of a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Theresa May spent two years propped up by Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists.
Now the results of last week’s local elections, or rather their extrapolation to project a hung parliament after the next general election, has provoked speculation by Conservatives (and their press cheerleaders) about the deals that Sir Keir Starmer might strike in order to form a government, as if that would be an impediment to stable administration – a “coalition of chaos”.
