The prime minister, David Cameron, and deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, have reiterated that the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition will serve a full parliamentary term of 5 years. However, some political scientists predict that it will not survive until May 2015 (Bale 2012; Dunleavy 2012). How might a break-up of the coalition occur?
Given that Westminster had not experienced peacetime coalition government since the 1930s, the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition has been more stable than some predicted. It is a ‘minimal-winning coalition’. This means that it contains the fewest parties needed to reach an overall majority. It is thus more stable than a coalition of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and various smaller parties would have been.
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