The rough ride ahead for Nick Clegg's constitutional reform agenda was illustrated rather painfully when he delivered his statement to the Commons yesterday.
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit µþµþ°äÌý°Â±ð²ú·É¾±²õ±ð for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
The Coalition partners had agreed on a referendum even if their parties planned to take opposing sides on the actual question, and even if David Cameron's made it clear that he "will not give up the day job" to campaign against voting reform.
But the moment of crisis in the Coalition may well come before any referendum campaign - when the Commons gets to debate the Referendum Bill. On the face of it, getting a referendum through when it is supported by the Lib Dem-Conservative Coalition and was promised in Labour's election manifesto should be simple. But switching the voting system to the Alternative Vote (AV) is a political game changer.
, to try to come up with an educated guess as to how it might affect them. Anyone with more than 50% of the vote should feel fairly secure, but anyone with much less will need to consider where the second preference votes of those constituents who didn't vote for them might go. A lot of Conservatives would expect to mop up most of the second preferences of UKIP voters - but in the era of coalition it's no longer so clear where Labour and Lib Dem second preferences might end up. It's all very imponderable.
Careers on the line
Which may explain why there was so much hostility to the idea when Mr Clegg formally unveiled proposals to hold the referendum alongside the Scottish, Welsh and English local elections next May. MPs' careers are on the line over this. Even the bill's supposed sweetener for the Conservatives - cutting the number of MPs - leaves a sour aftertaste. Creating fewer, larger constituencies, with a mostly uniform size (Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles are exempted, and no constituency will be larger than Charles Kennedy's vast 13,000 sq km seat of Ross, Skye and Lochaber) implies an extensive redrawing of constituency boundaries, and, by definition, some MPs will be left without a seat when the music stops.
Backbenchers already suspect that the whips will cheerfully exploit that fact and that "unhelpful" MPs will get no helping hand if they find themselves pushed out in the resulting scramble. And in any event Labour - whose MPs tend to come from smaller inner city and Scottish seats - regard the whole exercise as naked gerrymandering.
Then there is the point that while the House of Commons will shrink, the number of ministers sitting in it will not. So the proportion of MPs bound to the government as part of the "payroll vote" will rise. A promise to cut the number of ministers was not forthcoming from Mr Clegg.
And he, himself, is an issue. His performance in the general election debates arguably saved the Lib Dems from a worse electoral drubbing than they received. He played a canny hand in negotiating the Coalition agreement. But Nick Clegg is still a relative newcomer to the political stage....he only reached the Commons in 2005 - and is now dealing with legislative tasks that would daunt a far more seasoned parliamentarian.
And critics are starting to accuse him of inept, even callow, tactics; and of sounding far too confrontational in his exchanges with Labour MPs. Perhaps Mr Clegg is feeling the heat: with Tory backbenchers, led by the formidable David Davis, lining up poison pill amendments to the AV Referendum Bill even before it's published, with nationalists in Scotland and Wales unhappy that the referendum would take place on the same day as their elections, and with Labour poised to reject the bill because of the constituency reorganisation proposals within it, formidable obstacles lurk in his path.
He has promised the second reading of an AV Referendum Bill - including those plans for larger and uniform-sized constituencies - before the summer break. And there should also be a second reading of another major constitutional measure, on fixed-term parliaments, which would include the controversial plans to require a "supermajority" - now two-thirds of MPs - to vote through a dissolution of Parliament and call a new election.
Incidentally, a dissolution is not the same as a vote of no confidence in a government. A government could be thrown out on a simple majority vote - but triggering a new election is what would need that two-thirds majority. The bill includes a major concession - that if a government loses a vote of confidence and no new government is formed within two weeks, a new election would automatically be triggered - but this seemed to please very few MPs.
All these arguments will be fought out in detail on the floor of the House. Both bills are major constitutional measures, and so they are not sent off to a committee to be debated in detail by a handful of MPs. Instead the detailed debate will be held by a committee of the whole House - probably in the two weeks when the Commons returns in September - that would give ample opportunity for hostile amendments cooked up between the wily shadow justice secretary Jack Straw, and hardline Tory backbenchers. Those with very long memories may recall the Tam Dalyell/George Cunningham amendment to the Scottish Devolution Bill, during the Callaghan government. They wrote in a requirement that the creation of a Scottish Parliament had to be supported by 40% of the total Scottish electorate regardless of the turnout in the referendum in setting it up. It proved an impossible hurdle; devolution was defeated for a generation, and the Scottish National Party turned on Callaghan, and voted to throw out his minority administration.
If the Coalition could not deliver a referendum acceptable to its Lib Dem ministers, they might simply walk. Maybe some of the more rebellious Tory backbenchers have that scenario in mind. Perhaps they calculate that if the Coalition disintegrated, their party would be able to rout the wounded Lib Dems and a still-leaderless Labour party in a snap autumn election, and then govern as a majority - perhaps even with a prime minister more to their liking.
Not long ago, Westminster was speculating that there would be very little happening in the September pre-conference interlude. Now it looks as if the fate of the Coalition itself could be determined.
I'm Mark D'Arcy and I'll be writing about what goes on in the chambers and committee rooms at Westminster.
