Once Upon A Time...

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the coalition has something of the children's fairytale about it, the dashing young prince (Cam) sweeping up in his arms the slumbering damsel (Clegg) and making him his queen.

And what of a romantic ideal to defend? For that, we have the Big Society: taking control and standing up for yourself in the spirit self-assertion. Giving a thoroughly black eye to meddling statism.

But in reality, the coalition is like watching the death throes of an abusive relationship playing out at a dinner party in front of uncomfortable guests.

And David Cameron has done something humiliating, like thrown his wine over Nick Clegg after being shown up in a polite discussion over tuition fees.

And a few of Nick Clegg’s friends – he hasn’t got many left, David Cameron’s managed to isolate him using a potent mixture of sex and emotional bullying – will take him to one side and say: “But Nick Clegg - why do you let him treat you like this?”

And then Nick Clegg will say the most heart-breaking thing you will ever hear: “It’s not David Cameron’s fault, I just say stupid things that make him cross. Things like social mobility is a priority of democratic government, which is clearly an unworkable fantasy of foggy socialism.”

But instead of offering him support, everyone will look at him in the eye and say “You have brought this upon yourself, whore of Buckinghamshire.” And they will kick him to the ground; and they will spit on him; and they will turn their back on him as he weeps; and he shall be shunned.

And the next time they hear of him it will be from a minor article in a local paper, explaining that his body has been exhumed from a shallow grave in Epping forest, his skull stoved in with something hard (presumed to be Michael Gove’s donkey punch), bite marks matching George Osbourne’s canines, several ribs cracked and different men’s semen clogging his rectum. And they will all think: that’s exactly how things should have turned out, I’m glad this has happened.

And that is why the Big Society will never work as a children’s story.