It is more than 150 years since Disraeli claimed that England does not love coalitions. And, as any statement of its time, as an observation, it is 150 years out of date. That is not to say that the opposite is true either. A more accurate observation would be to say that England, and indeed the rest of the UK, has fallen out of love with many of its governments, and that their success has been more to do with what they have sought to do and how they have gone about it than with whether or not they are multi-party coalitions.

If anything, the enduring insight of Disraeli’s observation is that voters lose patience with a government that lacks coherent purpose, or that is so divided in itself by disparate factions pulling in opposite directions that its ability to resolve public policy issues is undermined. That this can be the case with single-party governments just as much as with coalitions can be seen through the prism of John Major’s premiership pre-1997. For much of its time in office, the Major government, in which the likes of David Cameron and George Osborne served as special advisers, was a minority government constrained by its internal divisions. Had Major’s government had sufficient policy common ground with other parties to secure an alliance, it would have been a more effective government. Indeed it is difficult to imagine it being worse. Previous minority governments, such as Callaghan’s in 1977-78, and Ramsay MacDonald’s during 1930, have had loose arrangements with the main third party (in both these occasions the Liberals) which, while more effective than Major’s approach, were themselves less effective than the two main instances of Liberal and Labour coalition in the 20th century – namely the wartime coalitions during the first and second world wars.

On both these occasions the formation of coalitions (in 1915 and 1940 respectively) came in the wake of the inadequacy and unpopularity of essentially single party governments – Liberal up to 1915 and Conservative up to 1940 (the “National Liberal” members of Neville Chamberlain’s government behaving by then as Conservatives in pretty much all but name). For a coalition to succeed, it needs strong leadership and unity around a clear purpose. That was the essence of success for the wartime Lloyd George and Churchill coalitions.

In peacetime, Lloyd George’s post-1918 coalition government lost its unity of purpose and its record of achievement was all the worse for it. As bad, if not worse, was the performance of the coalition “National” government 1931-35, which combined three former and future prime ministers (Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain). Too often such a government of leading politicians can become ‘government of all the egos, weakening the lack of an agreed programme and an inability to take decisions. But as the record of Wilson’s Labour government’s show, the rivalry between the ‘big beasts’ of politics can be just as malign in a single party government.

So if the election gives Britain a hung parliament, Labour should look at the issue of potential coalition on its merits. If Labour is clear about its vision for Britain, and if Labour members are sufficiently self-confident to work with others to achieve those goals, then, if there is sufficient common ground with another party, a coalition government with clarity of purpose is likely to be more effective and popular than a minority government.