General Election 2011?

Not often I agree with something Jackie Ashley has to say, but her parts of her analysis here are spot on. An election this year would benefit the Tories and would almost certainly result in an outright win for Cameron and his band of happy campers. The Tories have the money to fight and Cameron looks Prime Ministerial in a way Miliband Minor just can't match. Furthermore, Labour has done little to change or reform itself; it remains a party based on negativity, with no positive message to offer whatsoever.

But if anything can stop an election this year, it's the Liberal Democrats. Yeah, they're getting little from the coalition other than flak (which would have happened had they signed up with Labour as well) and it seems unlikely that they will get their much hoped for electoral reform. But they made their bed, they've got to lie in it. Breaking away from the coalition now would mean they are showing that they can't be trusted as partners in power (a big problem for a party that has only governed once as a junior partner in the current coalition). Furthermore, the Liberal Democrats aren't popular at the moment - in a General Election right now, they'd face something approaching a wipe-out. Finally, their leader, Nick Clegg, must know that he will only lead his party for as long as the coalition lasts. If there was a General Election now, I'm pretty sure his leadership of the Liberal Democrats would end shortly after the results of that election came in (and there are no guarantees that he would keep his own seat in the Commons).

The Tories have a lot to gain through an election this year; it remains unlikely as the Liberal Democrats have literally everything to lose.