David Cameron looks at politics through the prism of power. It seemed for a time as if an inconclusive election might see Britain’s new prime minister fall at the final fence. Mr Cameron is a born-to-rule Conservative. Ideology could not be allowed to obstruct his party’s historic duty to hold office. So he tore up the rules and teamed up with a bunch of progressives.
The air at Westminster has been thick with history. Mr Cameron is the youngest occupant of 10 Downing Street since the Napoleonic wars (Tony Blair was older by a few months). He leads the first peacetime coalition since the 1930s. The Tories have returned from their longest period in political exile since the split over the Corn Laws during the 1840s.
More interesting is whether Mr Cameron’s extraordinary post-election pact with Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats has redrawn the contours of British politics. Everyone agrees there is new landscape. The prime minister and his deputy want it to last for at least five years. That is not to say it is stable.