Lord Adonis turns his back on the possibility of a Labour / Lib Dem coalition

Lord Adonis – a former Lib Dem – has turned his back on the possibility of a Labour coalition with the Lib Dems, telling the Guardian:

“I would certainly prefer a Labour government with a small majority to a coalition with the Lib Dems. Definitely. Absolutely definitely. I would not have said that two and a half years ago.”

“What we have essentially had, let’s be clear, is the Tories’ economic policy and a seriously failed attempt by the Lib Dems to inject some constitutional reform into a Tory government. There has been very little that is identifiably Liberal that has been brought into the mix.

“If they were going to be in coalition with us, I hope it would be our programme that would be dominant. But it’s not at all clear to me what the Lib Dems would bring to the party.

“I think the real danger, which we’ve seen over the last two and a half years, is that you would have constant wrangling and argument about the implementation of the government’s programme issue by issue without any productive result from it.”

“Let’s be clear – it’s the same Lib Dem party that has failed catastrophically in forging an effective coalition with the Conservatives who we would be relying upon to form a coalition with us.”