Policy Research Media Morhamburn

They were right. For years the leaders of the Labour and Conservative parties had refused to do pre-election television debates because, among other things, they didn’t want to give a platform to the Liberal Democrats.

And, lo and behold, now the young upstart Clegg (aka “I agree with Nick”) has swung past the other two party leaders in some polls as the man most likely to be king.

Okay, so there’s a wee way to go yet and the number crunchers have injected a big dollop of scepticism to all this, but the role of king-maker does look very likely to be up for grabs on 7^th May. And it would be a role that Mr Clegg would relish just as much as Mr Salmond.

So what are the lessons to be learnt from the last time that LibDems got into the governmental marital bed with another party?

In the first four years of the Scottish Parliament two particular decisions, both of them, interestingly, making Scotland’s policy different from England’s, are claimed by the LibDems as having been driven by them.

The first was the abolition of tuition fees for Scottish university students and the second the adoption of the Sutherland Commission’s proposals for free personal care.

Then in 2003 the partnership between Labour’s Jack McConnell and the LibDem leader Jim Wallace, “A Partnership for a Better Scotland”, was the result of some tougher bargaining. The LibDems had, understandably, got better at this pact business.

The most dramatic result, certainly in its long term impact, was the insistence by the then Mr (now Lord) Wallace that there had to be proportional representation in the elections to Scotland’s councils. The Local Governance Act 2003 duly introduced proportional representation (PR) by Single Transferable Vote.

The LibDems also claim credit for the Smoking, Health and Social Care Act of 2005 that saw the UK’s first ban on smoking in public places. History might, however, give rather more of the credit to Jack McConnell – and in turn to the SNP’s Stewart Maxwell whose Member’s Bill forced Labour’s hand.

Also included in the 2005 Smoking, Health and Social Care Act were the reintroduction of free eye and dental checks, as promised in the LibDem manifesto for the 2003 election.

Does any of this tell us anything about the sorts of things that LibDems would insist on being part of any agreement for them to support another party to form the government at Westminster?

No prizes for suggesting that high on the list will be the introduction of PR to voting for Westminster in the future. If it is Labour that the Liberal Democrats are supporting then they’ll have a big job to maintain Labour’s resolve given that it will inevitably spell the end to the traditional two party Westminster system.

Apart from the constitutional issues, it’s hard to know which of the 2010 manifesto promises the LibDems would regard as deal-breakers in any pact with another party at Westminster. LibDems are generally a pragmatic lot so it will be horses for courses. The proposals to reform the House of Lords may be fine with Labour and the promise to reign in the public sector and its pensions system will be fine with the Tories.

Arguably, however, the issue that allowed Nick Clegg to move from zero to hero in the minds of viewers of the first leaders’ debate isn’t something that the other parties will entertain. In fact, I have no recollection of Messrs Brown and Cameron even allowing the word “Trident” to pass their lips during the 90 minutes on ITV.

The established parties regard Trident, and spending some £100 billion on its replacement, as being the ticket they will need to continue to sit at the global top table and continue to defend their all-important vote on the UN Security Council.

So, to phase out rather than renew Trident will need Mr Clegg to not just have access to Number 10 but also to have the keys to the front door, have the flat in the attic and the title “Prime Minister”.

At least he can be sure of the votes of the SNP and Plaid Cymru to support this particular policy.

[The views expressed by Morhamburn people in their blogs are theirs and theirs alone. they do not represent the thoughts of the company as a whole or our clients. If you have a comment to make on any blog, please email info@morhamburn.com and we’ll put the printable ones up on the website]