Coalition

In 2010 in the run-up to the British election PM Gordon Brown, pushed by spin doctor Peter Mandelson, nervously agrees to a televised debate with the Conservative leader David Cameron and his Lib Dem counterpart Nick Clegg. Polls show Clegg to be the most popular as a result. However on election night his party gets less votes than expected but the Conservatives are also nineteen seats short of an overall majority. Shadow chancellor George Osborne suggests to Cameron a coalition with the Lib Dems to secure the required amount of seats but some Labour ministers have the same idea . Liberal elder statesman Paddy Ashdown tells Clegg the party's natural affinity is with Labour but Clegg is idealistic and feels that to ally himself with the stronger Conservatives would help him to bring about the changes the country needs. And thus begins a very strange and not always harmonious coalition.