Dividing lines not pictured

“Coalitions never work. Disagreement. Stalemate. Disaster.”

Smugly, Labour sympathisers think it will be over before we know it. Best to go it alone, some Tories said, and dare the Liberals to vote down deficit-cutting measures that could provoke economic and political turbulence.

But the Tory party itself is a coalition—libertarians, moralists and one nation Conservatives among them. And it has remained pretty united under Cameron, achieving the greatest swing for the Tories since 1931 in this general election. In fact, it seems as though the main reason the Tories didn’t secure an overall majority was that the leadership was fixated on managing the internal coalition, not reaching out to floating voters with substantial policies.

Just look at London. Almost everyone lives and works next to immigrants. Poverty is stark and visible. The gay community is sizeable. Doubt remained among liberal Londoners whether the Tory Party as