As the current parliament progresses, the dissonance between constitutional norms and governing reality may prove too great to ignore

This May’s General Election saw the end of the first full coalition in post-war British politics, between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. The partnership brought together two parties with distinct constitutional philosophies, and entailed a trade-off between principle and pragmatism which saw the latter’s electoral evisceration. Felicity Matthews looks both backwards over the last five years and forward to the next five, and argues that the coalition’s period in government makes likely an ever-greater dissonance between constitutional norms and the reality of governing as a majority Conservative administration.