The account of the Coalition negotiations by David Laws tells us little we didn't already know. It thus surely heralds his return to office.
By Paul Goodman
David Cameron was desparate to avoid governing with the Liberal Democrats. Nick Clegg was keen to do a deal with Gordon Brown, because their personal relationship is strong. The Labour leader behaved selflessly throughout the Coalition negotiations, putting constitutional requirements before his Party's interests.
To cause a sensation, David Laws new book, serialised in today's Mail on Sunday, would have had to spring a surprise - and say the above, or something very like it, garnished with details of spectacular rows and personal tensions during the talks between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat teams.
Instead, it tells us nothing significant that we don't already know. There are a few memorable snippets. Peter Mandelson, responding to the Liberal Democrats' mansion tax plan, said: "Surely the rich have suffered enough?" Ed Miliband went out to make the tea during the Labour-Liberal Democrat talks.
Brown's interminable phone lectures wrung a cry of "That man!" from Nick Clegg. Miliband, Harriet Harman and Ed Balls - in particular - didn't want a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition, and effectively sabotaged any prospect of a pact.
That all these awkward details involve Labour is deliberate. In views and outlook, Laws was the most right-wing Liberal Democrat Cabinet Minister, and one of the main hinges that joined the Coalition together. He's out to present the enterprise in the most favourable way possible.
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