I almost missed this one. The former Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott has joined the Liberal Democrats. McMillan-Scott, as you might remember, fell out with the Tory leadership over David Cameron's much-criticised decision to realign his party with the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists in the European parliament. He was once also the head of the Tory grouping in Brussels.
The Conservatives, perhaps unsurprisingly, have been keen to downplay the incident. One source within the party pointed out that McMillan-Scott had been expelled some six months ago and that "he has not been a Conservative MEP since then." And speaking of his defection: "They're welcome to him." Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, on the other hand, said he was "delighted" to welcome on board an MEP who was "respected... across Europe."
The Lib Dems are an interesting choice for the former Tory; the party is currently subject to rampant speculation over its role should the prospect of a hung parliament come to fruition in the wake of this summer's general election. Leader Nick Clegg may have shrugged off suggestions that his party will be 'kingmakers' if both Labour and the Conservatives fail to win a majority but that still hasn't stopped people asking just that. Claims that he would seek coalition government with the Conservatives - Shadow business secretary Ken Clarke considers Clegg a conservative with compatible views to his own - have been matched by counterclaim that argue any such move would alienate the Lib Dem's left-leaning core membership. Clegg's recent praise of Margaret Thatcher and his knack of recruiting former Tories has probably not helped his current claims of political neutrality.
Liberal Democrat-Conservative link-ups are not particularly unusual, at least at a local level; the city council here in Leeds is an example of one such partnership and several others exist around the country. Coalitions are not always a recipe for successful government and so it has proved here in West Yorkshire when it recently played host to the largest industrial action seen in the region since the dark days of the 1980s. The dispute resulted in a victory for the striking workers and a humiliating climbdown for council chiefs.
Clegg has attempted to divert the focus away from such speculative efforts by concentrating on his own party's performance come the general election, and it's no wonder why; the inherent assumption within the 'kingmaker' debate is that the Lib Dems are fated to come in third once again. To the lowly party activist it may seem an overly pessimistic - if entirely plausible - scenario.
But it is Clegg's apparent right-wing sympathies, at odds with so much of his party, that - combined with Labour and the Conservative's similar poll ratings - has fuelled such speculation in the first place. It will be interesting to see whether the prospect of a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats at its heart will seem quite so unpalatable if such a situation eventually does arise come May 6th.
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