The Labour Party are clearly out of the picture at present, with a leadership campaign prior to the autumn party conference being the only item of business before any serious opposition to the coalition can be made.
Once the new Labour opposition team are in business obviously their attention will fall on spending cuts, social welfare services and exploiting any potential rifts in coalition ideology (Europe being the obvious one).
The Liberal Democrats are in the trickiest position. Wooed with Cabinet seats and committee chairs to keep them tied in they will face the pain of their council officials. Long the "party of local government" the Lib Dems are going to be backing major cuts to social services which will weaken their support at elections downstream. Europe, Defence and electoral reform will put the parliamentary party in the difficult position of either abandoning manifesto commitments to keep cozy ministerial jobs or be seen as Weak. Handled poorly, this coalition could haunt the Liberal Democrats for a generation.
The Conservatives are looking most comfortable though perhaps ironically individuals look somewhat more shaky, especially messers. Cameron and Osborne.
For George Osborne, the spending review this autumn will be the defining moment of his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Asking departments to prepare plans for cuts of 25% (20% ?) and for the order of 20% (10-20% ?) in Defence whilst leaving the massively inefficient Health Department unscathed is interesting.
The intruiging point is his political longevity in the job. Despite his closeness to Cameron, does he have the same relationship as Blair & Brown ? Will David sign off on George's spending plans or will he ask a friend to review ?? If so, who is the PM's "phone a friend ?"
For David Cameron he must know that getting the spending plans wrong coupled with any form of opposition resurgence put him in the position of facing rivals for the leadership. His cabinet contains two former leaders in opposition - William Hague (foreign secretary) and Iain Duncan Smith (social security). The former is part of the star chamber reviewing spending plans and the latter command one of the largest spending government departments after health and ahead of Defence.
Both these individuals know that how they are seen to support the spending cuts will one day come back to haunt them suggesting that they will be reading the fine print of spending cuts exceptionally closely.
For the Conservative Party however, the future is pretty rosy. If the Liberal Democrats weaken they will likely benefit. The odd defector, by-election win, council victory will move the Conservatives towards a position where I would be keen to bet of going for an election in 3 years to get an outright majority and dissolve their coalition.
The Labour leadership election is yet to reach it's crescendo though one would suspect they will have to work hard to make a challenge at the next election. However some positive changes and remember - only a coalition won the last election. A defeat for labour though not an outright win for the Tories.
Much to play for.
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