To centrist Conservative intellectuals, the genius behind the coalition lies in its promise that it will soothe the anti-Conservative hatred that has stopped the party winning for almost 20 years. By including the Lib Dems, Cameron has turned the Conservatives from being a right-wing minority party into the dominant partner in a centre-Right majority coalition. The Tory centre hopes that the Liberal presence will allow its ministers to overcome all the old accusations of nastiness. The Tory Right fears that the Conservative centre may be right and that Cameron's manoeuvre has pushed it to the margins — maybe forever. 

Beyond all the calculations of politicians and their allies lies the yearning for consensus that is buried deep in the national character. Partisans mock the exasperated audience members on Question Time who ask: "Why oh why can't men and women of goodwill stop their bickering, get round the table and act in the national interest?" To the tribalist, they are idiot sentimentalists who think they can escape from the battle of ideas and clash of interests. Foolish they may be, but their desire for harmony and conciliation should not be underestimated. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the British believe they are a commonsensical people who can always see the advantages of compromise and the avoidance of unnecessary arguments. More voters than the ideologically committed like to imagine would welcome a national government in times of crisis. The Conservative-Lib Dem coalition is the next best thing. 

And what is giving it its popularity, what is making it seem like an alliance of sensible men and women willing to put aside petty differences, is the presence of the Lib Dems, a party which seemingly embodies moderation, compromise and a loathing of fanaticism. 

But the contented intelligentsia, the happy Tory centrists, worried Thatcherites and all who think we are in a new era of stability and compromise are wrong about the Lib Dems. They are not always moderate. In crucial respects, they are far closer to the caricature of neo-fascist Tories than the Tories are themselves. They will go along with the most bloodstained conspiracy theories and endorse medieval hatreds without a thought for how their actions damage the cause of democratic liberalism. Their prejudices are barely examined, however, in part because a lazy media has refused to cover them and in part because they are not, unfortunately, confined to the party.

Among the many failures of political journalists in this election — and we got pretty much everything about it wrong right up to the last minute when we were predicting a small Conservative majority — was the failure to understand the Liberal Democrats. Before Nick Clegg stormed the first leaders' debate, lobby correspondents did not stir themselves to cover the party, even though it won 62 seats and close to six million votes in the 2005 general election. Lib Dems justifiably complained about the narrowness of Westminster journalists' concerns and their lazy refusal to investigate the opinions of a country that had long ago broken away from two-party politics. But they should have been grateful that reporters have not looked too hard at the Liberals' dark side. If they had, they would have seen it sinking in a swamp of conspiratorial paranoia.