I agree with Len. Those are not words that often cross my lips but the general secretary of Unite is right: the thought of a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition is not one to ‘set the pulse racing’. I suspect, however, that McCluskey and I may have different fears about the dynamics of such a government.

However much their role in the coalition has exacerbated the already strained relationship between the two parties, there are, of course, plenty of areas where Labour and the Liberal Democrats share common ground. The threat of Britain’s departure from the European Union, so carelessly toyed with by David Cameron, is a danger to the country’s economic wellbeing and place in the world like no other we face. On this, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg can agree and a government whose primary purpose was to prevent the Tory right’s dream of turning Britain into a Singapore of the North Sea is not without merit. Theoretically, Miliband’s focus on devolving power in public services is one on which Labour and the Liberal Democrats could find common cause. And on the environment, constitutional reform, and industrial policy the Labour and Liberal Democrat benches are more closely aligned than Clegg’s party is with the Conservatives.

There is also no denying that Vince Cable would look rather more comfortable in a government led by Miliband than one by Cameron; Simon Hughes would probably find serving in the justice department under Sadiq Khan a little more appealing than he does serving Chris Grayling. Ed Davey would no doubt find it easier to formulate environmental policy with Maria Eagle than Owen Paterson. And even David Laws may find Tristram Hunt’s commitment to educational reform a little less trying than some of Michael Gove’s bomb-throwing.

The problem with this scenario, however, is that it views the prospects of a future Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition through the dynamics of the current coalition government. While there are exceptions – the Liberal Democrats happily went along with the bedroom tax and sold out their liberal principles with their support for the lobbying bill – the party has probably helped to check some of the excesses the Tory right might have foisted on Cameron if he had a majority.

In part, this is the result of electoral calculation: in their south-west strongholds, where the Tories are in second place, the Liberal Democrats wish to present themselves at the next general election as having tempered their coalition partner’s policies. In January, the deputy prime minister re-emphasised that approach when discussing the coalition’s goal of eliminating the structural deficit by 2017-18: attacking George Osborne’s ‘monumental mistake’ of wishing to make further big cuts to the welfare budget after the election, he argued: ‘Here is the big difference with the Conservatives – we believe the way in which you finish that job should be done fairly.’

The Liberal Democrats would, however, face an altogether different political calculation if they entered a coalition with Labour. At present, Clegg’s centre-ground strategy implies that just as he has been, as he puts it, an ‘anchor’ for social justice in the current coalition, he would be one for economic competence in a Labour-led government. Such an approach may make very good strategic sense at a time when the Tories are the main challengers in 38 Liberal Democrat seats, while Labour is in second place in only 17 (the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru are each second-placed in two remaining Liberal Democrat constituencies).

But is there not another scenario in which the Liberal Democrats reprise their late 1990s shift to the left under Charles Kennedy? As Ed Balls acknowledges in an interview with this month’s Progress magazine, Labour will have to administer some harsh medicine if it is to fulfil his pledge to ‘balance the books and get the national debt falling’. Since its return to opposition, the party has recovered – at the expense of the Liberal Democrats – much of the left-leaning vote it lost in office. In 2015, Labour expects its majorities to rocket in much of its safest territory and seats like Manchester Withington, Brent Central, Burnley and Redcar to ‘come home’ to the party as erstwhile alienated supporters return to the fold.

But tough choices in government will inevitably put Labour’s relationship with those who defected to the Liberal Democrats under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, but who have returned since 2010, under fresh strain. Many such voters may have found Miliband’s declaration that ‘the era of New Labour is over’ appealing, but will they really find a Labour government which has to continue to cut public spending much more palatable than the comparatively free-spending Labour government they abandoned in 2005 and 2010? Now there were other important factors – Iraq, tuition fees, and the recession – which fractured Labour’s vote when it was in power but to assume that the fiscal situation an incoming Miliband government would inherit will make for political plain sailing is nonsensical.

And it is here that the Liberal Democrats may spot their opportunity: not to be, as we all assume, the guardians of fiscal rectitude and value for money in public services, but to recover some of that ground lost to Labour. In the wake of their lamentable performances in by-elections in northern seats like Barnsley Central, Rotherham, and Wythenshawe and Sale East, it may seem somewhat far-fetched to imagine the Liberal Democrats making a play for disgruntled leftwing voters, but given the party’s ideological dexterity, it is not impossible to imagine, particularly under a leadership other than Clegg’s.

Just consider how the third party has positioned – and repositioned – itself over the course of the past 30 years, always with its eye on the electoral main chance. During the height of Labour’s unpopularity in the 1980s, the Liberals under David Steel had a formal policy of ‘equidistance’ between Labour and the Tories. As Labour began to recover in the 1990s, Paddy Ashdown abandoned that in order to establish the party’s closer proximity to it and smooth the way to a possible coalition with Blair. After he became leader in 1999, Kennedy believed that wooing voters to Labour’s left – opposing much of New Labour’s public service reform agenda, calling for higher public spending and rejecting interventionism abroad – offered the party the highest electoral dividends. Under Clegg, equidistance was back in, as the party’s Orange Bookers rediscovered its smaller state and economic liberal roots, making a coalition with Cameron in 2010 less implausible than it might otherwise have been.

Consider, too, the likely composition of the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party after 2015.  Assume the party suffers serious – but not totally devastating – losses and it might end up with around 20 seats. On the basis of a ‘dumb’ uniform national swing a look at its safest seats indicates the Liberal Democrats are likely to be fairly evenly divided between more left-leaning ‘social liberals’ like Kennedy, Cable, Hughes and Tim Farron and its Orange Book wing, like Clegg, Laws, and Danny Alexander. That makes the party’s likely strategic positioning and orientation in a coalition with Labour rather more open to question than might first be assumed. On a range of issues – from the renewal of Trident to crime and anti-terrorist legislation, as well as public spending and reform of public services – the gravitational pull exercised by the Liberal Democrats may not be towards the centre-ground. All of which Len McCluskey may find a little less unsettling than he currently fears.

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Robert Philpot is director of Progress. He tweets @Robert_Philpot

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Photo: Liberal Democrats