Kirsty Wark reunites the people that forged Britain's 2010 coalition government and asks if being in power was worth the political price for the Liberal Democrats.
As dawn breaks on Friday 7th May 2010 it is clear that no one has won the general election. David Cameron’s Conservative party has failed to gain a majority. Gordon Brown’s Labour has lost over 90 seats and, despite a storming performance in the campaign, Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats have actually lost 5 MPs. No one is sure what happens next.
It is a unique moment in British political history - five tense and dramatic days as exhausted politicians try and find a way to form a government.
What emerges on day five is Britain’s first peacetime coalition since the 1930s, an agreement to rule for five years between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Things had moved incredibly fast.
But there is a clear winner, and a clear loser from sharing power. The 2015 election reduces the Lib Dems to eight seats in Parliament and Cameron finally gets his Conservative majority. Was going into power worth the political consequences for the junior coalition partner?
Kirsty Wark talks to some of the men who were in the rooms negotiating, and to journalists Anne McElvoy and Nick Robinson, and discusses how the dynamics of that coalition shaped policy and party politics for years to come.
Contributors: Danny Alexander, Vince Cable, Ed Balls, Nick Robinson, Anne McElvoy, William Hague.
Producer: Marie Helly
Series Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
