You are absolutely right, there’s no difference between a Labour/Lib Dem coalition and a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition. If two parties can work together the government will reflect more of the countries choice of who they wanted in power.
Since the Conservatives have 36% of the vote and Labour 29% the possible coalitions would represent:
Labour/Lib Dem : 52% of the popular vote.
Conservative/Lib Dem : 59% of the popular vote.
So if Labour could form a coalition just with the Lib Dems (which they can’t, they’d need the SDLP and the SNP as well) they’d have less of a mandate than a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition government.
Since Labour would need the Lib Dems, the SDLP and the SNP to form a majority government if they could get a government with this mix the popular vote % would be about 54%, so still the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition has more support in terms of covering more peoples votes.
Note I’m a Labour voter, so you can trust me when I say the Conservatives have more of a mandate than Labour IF they both some how could form a coalition government :-)
All of this doesn’t really matter, all that matters is if Labour or the Conservatives can claim government and not loose a vote of confidence and that requires a coalition government with a majority or a minority government with agreements for smaller parties not to vote against them on important matters in return for concessions.
David
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