Mr Clegg says co-operation with the other parties will also depend on their commitment to a more redistributive tax system, more spending on poor schoolchildren, a greener economy and political reform, such as ditching the first-past-the-post voting model.

ECONOMIST: Britain��s third party may soon be much more than that

If the coalition works, voters may warm to the idea of power-sharing, and to the proportional voting systems that inevitably give rise to it. (A referendum on the alternative-vote electoral model, which the Lib Dems prefer over Westminster's first-past-the-post system, is part of the deal.) And the Lib Dems got all this despite flopping at the polls.

ECONOMIST: The new coalition government