0 Impossible, they say.

I've been off college ill for the last two days (everyone say 'Awww!') which has given me plenty of time to reflect on the political landscape we seem to have found ourselves in. A year ago the very suggestion of Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister would have drawn a mirthful laugh, and the idea of having to type 'The Right Hon. Vince Cable MP' would have been equally mundane. Clearly, times have changed.

First and foremost, I should say that I am surprised. If we look back to the slightly naive sense of optimism I may have shown in my last blog post, this will be apparent. It transpired that Gordon's resignation wasn't enough to bring about any serious change of attitude from the Lib Dems towards Labour. Equally so in reverse. It was apparent on Tuesday morning that a number of senior Labour figures were doubtful of their ability to work with the Liberal Democrats. More surprising still, however, was the amount of control and policy influence the Lib Dems have managed to get out of David Cameron.

Having said that, I suspect that the Conservatives were generous because it was in their interests to be. At the end of the day, the Tories cannot afford for this coalition to break down. They need the Lib Dems to be inextricably tied to them, otherwise there remains the possibility of partisan dissent. What better way to ensure such a link than give several Liberal Democrats Cabinet positions and promote their leader to Deputy PM? This works well in Cameron's interests too. By ensuring the Lib Dems are aboard, he can reaffirm the idea that the Tories are no longer the "Nasty Party". After all, he has the backing of the Liberals! He can implement their much-admired policies and take the credit for it while the rest of his own party remain in obscurity as he promotes only the most squeaky clean of them to the Cabinet, filling up extra positions with Lib Dems. It's actually a great arrangement for Cameron.

I wish I could say the same for the Liberal Democrats. They have the Climate Change brief, they have the Business brief, they have Chief sec. to the Treasury and they have the Scottish brief. Let's look at that properly:

DECC was a new department created by Brown in an almost tokenistic fashion to pay lip service to the growing Climate Change concern. DECC wield relatively little power, and almost seem to be a de facto junior partner to DEFRA. Essentially, it's a non-department.

Scottish Secretary Danny Alexander only got the position because the Tories have only one MP in Scotland. It would be ridiculous for a party that is so clearly disliked to attempt to represent Scottish people, so they gave the Liberal Democrats that job because at least they're not hated as much. This is an appointment of convenience rather than meaning. Worth acknowledging also is that the Scottish Office doesn't have a huge amount of power. It's another lip-service department created to keep the devolution junkies happy.

Vince Cable at BIS and David Laws as Chief Sec. are also posts that essentially have been placed under Treasury control. David Laws is George Osborne's junior partner, and Vince Cable is leading a department that holds no real spending power, but is more of a structural support to Treasury spending. It can't be a position in which Cable could have envisaged himself working best. Having said that, Business Secretary is a nice title.

How about Nick Clegg? The "office" of Deputy Prime Minister holds no actual power, other than Power-by-association. Deputy PM is not a constitutional role, and is as much or as little as David Cameron lets it be. That's something we'll have to wait to see, but I can't help but feeling that Clegg will have little of the grandeur that he might expect.

The Conservatives have clung onto key departments - Home Office, Foreign Office, Education, Health and Communities. They've given essentially non-jobs to Liberal Democrats, and have made a number of policy concessions that they must have known would be unpopular with the public anyway and so were no great loss.

I can't help but feel that Nick Clegg and his party have been the losers in this deal. Not only will they be forced to prop up a Conservative administration in return for relatively little power, but they'll be forced to abstain on key policy areas that they oppose - for instance, the Lib Dems will have to abstain on the vote about introducing tuition fee rises. That must be painful for them. On top of all of this, if the coalition does badly, the Liberal Democrats are set to lose more voters than the Conservatives will, because their own supporters will blame them for allowing a Conservative government in power.

This coalition has to be successful for the Liberal Democrats' sake, because otherwise they lose a lot of voters, and they also lose their argument for Proportional Representation - something they've campaigned on for a long time (and something that's been denied them by the Conservatives).

So for now, Labour are heading off to the to opposition benches. A place where some cynical members have pointed out we will do well from as we're able to criticise the inevitable ConDem spending cuts and say we wouldn't have done it like that. This coalition, I believe, will end in tears, with the Lib Dems losing a lot of voters to Labour, and the Conservatives losing that floating voter support. Whether it's in 5 years or 10 years, Labour will be back. We'll be back because Labour believes in the very values that the Tories cannot understand, and the values that the Liberal Democrats have betrayed. Fairness. Openness. Families. Education.

The late Labour government has had its problems. Questionable civil liberties records, a war that was debatable in the first place and is now unjustifiable, and a few MPs whose expenses were an affront to good spending tastes (let alone public trust). But Labour will learn from it's mistakes, unlike the Conservatives.

The fightback starts now.