In Downing Street, they refer to it as Nick Clegg’s “Dunkirk moment” – the moment he revealed to Andrew Marr he’d shore up David Cameron in a hung Parliament.
Before his television confession last Sunday, the Liberal Democrat leader had revealed less ankle than a nun at a nun’s convention on the holiest day on Planet Holy.
But he disclosed to Marr that he believed the party with the most electoral support had “first right” to lead the country – a position which could see his party back a Cameron-led coalition or allow the Tory leader to form a minority Government.
Recent opinion polls are all over the place with the Tory lead vacillating between seven and 17 per cent – although it’s realistically about 14 per cent.
So, why did Clegg feel the need, against advice from Lib Dem elders, to show his hand?
His exact words to Marr were: “The party which has got the strongest mandate from the British people will have the first right to seek to govern.”
Given that history shows the chances of a hung parliament are pretty unlikely – despite the huge desire of every academic to wax lyrical about the possibility – Clegg’s unforced move is odd.
An average of polls puts the Tories on about 42 per cent, Labour on 28 and the Lib Dems on 17 which would produce a parliament (on a uniform swing) with 296 Tories, 278 Labour MPs, 44 Lib Dems and 33 MPs from the nationalist parties and others.
The Lib Dems should be foaming at the mouth at the prospect of such influence as Westminster heads towards the first hung parliament since February 1974 when Harold Wilson virtually dead-heated with Edward Heath’s Conservative Government.
But Labour strategists believe Clegg’s strategic trim towards the Tories represents “a defensive retreat” to shore up the party’s “high water mark” when 62 Lib Dems were elected in 2005.
A senior Labour source and close ally of Gordon Brown told me: “Clegg’s comments to Andy Marr represented his Dunkirk moment.
“This is all about a retreat to hold on to the 2005 high water mark and protect Lib Dem marginals in the South West and on the south-west fringe of London. “
They point to Nick Clegg’s promise, as a Lib Dem MP elected in the Labour heartland of Sheffield, that he would break into Labour’s citadels and take the “neglected” Labour seats in urban areas.
The Labour source explained: “Clegg’s position now is a recognition that he’s conceding that ground and saying to Tories in Lib Dem-held marginals ‘it’s okay to vote for us because we’ll support Cameron anyway’.
“His bold promise to take Labour on is being ditched in favour of a Dunkirk-style retreat to cling on to key Lib Dem seats.”
The Clegg admission will leave him and his would-be MPs in a nightmarishly tricky position as they try to explain in Lib-Lab marginals why voting Lib Dem isn’t the same as a vote for Cameron.
And there was me thinking that allowing Clegg to be portrayed as “Cameron-lite” was the one thing the Lib Dems were desperate to avoid.
