The Not-So-Odd Couple

Consider Britain’s two new leaders, bound together because neither won a parliamentary majority. Both are likable 43-year-olds with a confident style. Both come from privileged backgrounds and attended top private schools and universities. Both have young families and high-achieving wives. Both talk of breaking with the past and the need to rebuild Britain’s political culture. Neither cares much for dogma; both favor a liberal line on a range of issues from civil liberties to gay marriage. For good measure, both are good tennis players.

So why shouldn’t David Cameron and Nick Clegg get along? OK, one is the leader of Britain’s center-right Conservatives, while the other leads the left-leaning Liberal Democrats, but the points of similarity are hard to miss—and important. Insiders say their good personal relations help explain why Clegg chose to become Cameron’s deputy rather than work under the leader of the Labour Party, whose doctrine fits better with the Liberal Democrats’ program.

And if the pair aren’t yet best friends, they can manage a convincing show. At a joint press conference in the Downing Street garden, they laughed at each other’s jokes, made lavish use of each other’s first names and finished each other’s sentences. In Clegg’s words, this could be the beginning of a new age “where politicians of different persuasions come together—overcome their differences in order to deliver good government for the sake of the whole country.”

Admittedly, it won’t be easy to sustain that good will. The rank and file of both parties are leery of an alliance with their old enemies. Many Conservatives abhor the Liberal Democrats’ fondness for the European Union and reform of the voting system. Squabbles are inevitable over how to stanch the national deficit. Already skeptics are forecasting disaster. In the words of columnist Simon Heffer, writing in The Daily Telegraph: “It is hard to see how an election can be postponed much beyond this time next year.”

But this coalition could last. The program for the new government, drawn from both party manifestos, suggests a willingness to compromise: the Liberal Democrats, for example, have dropped their commitment to a “mansion tax” on the richest homeowners and the scrapping of Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent. They’ve agreed, in line with Conservative policy, to allow a nationwide cap on immigration from outside the EU.

Meanwhile, Conservatives have given ground on electoral reform (they will accede to a referendum), agreed to lower rates for the poor, and postponed proposals to cut an inheritance tax for the rich. To share the spoils of victory, five Liberal Democrats will be joining the cabinet.

And on Europe—the most contentious issue for these two parties—there’s less daylight between the two than there once was. The Lib Dems had wanted to Britain to join the euro, but that’s out of the question after the Greek fiasco undermined the credibility of a common currency. And the Conservatives had wanted a referendum on any future surrender of power to the European Union, but with the Lisbon Treaty (which sets formal limits on the power of Brussels) already ratified in the U.K., the debate on national sovereignty is effectively over. At any rate, the polls indicate that integration with Europe—either for or against—is low on the public’s worry list.

In the end, though, Cameron’s probably not even sorry to be pulled leftward by Clegg. The need for coalition makes a handy excuse to push through the kind of radical changes that he’d like to see, but which his party hardliners would have stopped, as a “progressive conservative” with the outlook of a social liberal. And now it will be tough for the right-wingers to complain: breaking up the coalition might mean a return to the opposition benches, where they just spent 13 years. Partnerships work best where there’s mutual advantage. This one might just flourish.