Miliband will be sitting prettiest after the local elections. But if he is serious about power, he must talk to Lib Dems
Labour tribalists think they have never had it so good. By Friday, according to their reckoning, hundreds of council seats will have returned to the fold, the AV referendum will have been lost and their public enemy number one, Nick Clegg, will have been humiliated. A year after Gordon Brown was driven from Downing Street in that most treacherous of coalition agreements, revenge will be sweet.
I am not sure I subscribe to these fantasies, but for the moment I will suspend my scepticism.
The shorthand predictions are that Ed Miliband will take 600 to 1,000 council seats back into Labour control; David Cameron will lose a similar number, but Tory disappointment will be offset by crowing at preserving first past the post. Clegg will stagger, battered and bruised; the Liberal Democrats will be set back nearly 20 years in local government. Speculation about a leadership challenge will begin in earnest. Chris Huhne will be said to be waiting in the wings; Tim Farron is already being talked up.
The prime minister will feel he has his deputy just where he wants him, in a role of subservience. Yet only a few months ago Cameron aides briefed that Clegg was a buffer against the frothing Tory tendency. The relationship has not changed as much as some claim.
The calculation is the same. Does Cameron believe that a full-blooded rightwing government could win an overall majority in a snap election? If the answer is yes, something dramatic will have happened to British voters, who refused wholeheartedly to embrace the Tories in 2010, when it was most propitious – with the hapless era of Brown drawing to a close and cuts still a matter of conjecture. I see no evidence for that.
As for Miliband, he knows his history: repeated local election victories were not replicated in the big votes of 1983, 1987 and 1992. Miliband has seen the comparisons to Kinnock – a leader who was just good enough for opposition, but not trusted by voters with the more onerous task of government.
The better Labour performs in these interim indicators, the more reluctant it will be to ask itself the hard questions necessary to return to power. To what extent can Miliband forge a kind of politics beyond the embrace of bankers, the assault on civil liberties and the viciousness of tribalism that were the worst aspects of the old era? This was the politics that Clegg, spectacularly but briefly, was seen by many Guardianistas – including myself – to espouse just a year ago. We all know what happened next, although I remain of the view that, for all the mistakes, the Lib Dems have played a positive role and can continue to do so.
Miliband will be sitting prettiest next weekend. But then what? Labour's position is not as strong as it may seem. The constituency changes will make it even harder for the party to achieve an overall majority. Labour is likely to fail to win in Scotland, its stronghold. Replicated at a general election, that would be a disaster. It will sweep up certain Lib Dem councils, such as Hull and Newcastle. But, even if it makes similar inroads at the next general election, it will not win a parliamentary majority by regaining popularity in the industrial cities in the north. The polls are solid for Labour but, in the midst of a deep recession, it should surely be well ahead.
The best bet for Miliband and Clegg would, therefore, be to swallow their pride, and start talking. It will be difficult for both to do so openly (Miliband, after all, refused to share a platform with his nemesis during the AV campaign). For all the bad blood of the past year, for all the talk of betrayal, there remains the kernel of a progressive consensus. The more Labour focuses its wrath on the wrong target, the more it will embed a Conservative government.
Next weekend's drama also gives an opportunity for a subtler and cleverer form of politics to take hold on the centre-left. The call by Huhne – in alliance with John Denham of Labour and the Greens' Caroline Lucas – for a "progressive majority" against the Tories marks an important moment for the coalition.
After 5 May, Clegg will be able to emphasise the differences between the two ruling parties. He should push harder and more roughly for issues that matter to him – Lords reform soon, more movement on removing the poorest from income tax, and social mobility.
Cameron has one nuclear option at his disposal – to opt for an early election. But, as Brown learned, fluffing your lines on this can have tragic consequences.
Who will blink first? For sure, Clegg would be punished at an early election, but it is far from clear that Cameron would achieve a majority. Would we be back in hung parliament territory? And this time around would Labour try harder to build bridges with other parties? Just as year one of the coalition was a new experience for the British body politic, so year two promises to be just as unpredictable. Preparation, flexibility and subtlety are the keys to success – not visceral tribal loyalties and loathing. Labour might wish Clegg away, but it may have to put up with him for longer.
If he is serious about power, Miliband should start talking, or at least whispering, to the man he says he cannot abide.
John Kampfner is chief executive of Index on Censorship and author of Freedom for Sale