Working together, Labour and the Lib Dems could exile the Tories for a generation | Martin Kettle

Starmer and Davey need to seize the moment. They have enough common ground to ally against their common enemy

Can the Liberal Democrats and Labour see themselves as allies in a common national project? Or are they fated to behave as rivals, always pursuing different goals? The question has been asked repeatedly, in various guises and circumstances, for more than 100 years, frequently in this newspaper. But there has never been a conclusive answer.

Today, as memories of the 2010-2015 Lib Dem-Conservative coalition fade, and following the two parties’ spectacular successes in July’s general election, a new version of the old question is on the agenda. Might the two parties now do to the Conservatives what the Tories and Labour did to the Liberals in the 1920s, and push them to the margins of politics?

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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