Heading for a rocky divorce

Divorce is in the air for David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

Nick Clegg is evidently the guilty party, having put aside David Cameron as a prospective partner and cosying up to Ed Miliband to prepare the ground for a new coalition love match.

Both partners, I suspect, will be delighted at the thought of a split; Cameron because he wants to be leading a fully Tory Government, not bowing to the whims of his current deputy PM.

Whether Mr Miliband will recognise in Clegg a partner for a Lib-Lab pact or would welcome anyone who made it possible for him to relegate the arrogant and aggressive Ed Balls, remains to be seen.

But there is something of a leap from the frying pan into the fire about a partnership between two of the least-likely partners to give Labour the prospect of a convincing leadership duo.

Batman and Robin they most certainly are not.

So what will Cameron do if Clegg decides his relationship with Dave has run its course. Cameron, one suspects, would be relieved to be able to cast off Clegg’s excess baggage. Maybe he would prefer to have as his partner the endlessly smug Alex Salmond, who can at least bring oil and gas to the party.

But can Cameron, with or without Clegg and his troops or Salmond and his bagpipe playing hordes turn the rather ineffective Tory party into a Conservative government?

And what about UKIP? Will they turf the Lib-Dem MPs out into the political wilderness of the long grass, forever to hunt for badgers? Exciting times lie ahead.



A glimpse at the latest state of play over our foreign aid budget shows that around £90million a year has been donated to Somalia despite grave warnings from the United Nations that corruption in the East African country is rife, and there are fears the money could be used to buy weapons - maybe for Al Qaeda.

If we are arming people to murder innocents going about their weekly shop, isn’t it about time that we took serious stock of just who we are funding and arming and stop it. Preferably sooner rather than later?