Grand?

Another General Election year, another call by The Guardian for a Grand Coalition. Before it comes out for the Lib Dems, as on the last three occasions.

There has been precisely one General Election in my adult lifetime at which The Guardian has advocated a Labour vote, and that was the first one, effectively a generation ago now.

If you were born on the day of the 1997 Election, then you will have the vote at the 2015 General Election.

Mind you, formal and informal coalitions between Labour and either the Conservative Party or whatever vehicle organises the paleo-Tory vote in a given locality are not uncommon at municipal level.

The late, great Derwentside District Council was run for many, many years by an unofficial but highly effective arrangement between the Labour mainstream, which led that Council throughout its history, and a body of Independents, against the nutters on both (or all) sides. It worked.

There is not going to be a hung Parliament, though.