At least there’s a silver lining to this pointless AV referendum

The Prime Minister speaks to Conservative council candidates near Bedford (Photo: PA)

Something has happened to David Cameron in the past fortnight. Call it an Easter resurrection, but he appears revived, not as a politician, but as a Conservative. He has found a confident voice that connects with the concerns of voters – although perhaps not, as his Michael Winner impression at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday shows, with those of the Labour sisterhood.

Cameron’s dismissal of Angela Eagle was no one-off moment of braggadocio. He suddenly seems more robust, less prepared to be politically polite to avoid trampling the feelings of the Liberal Democrats. He has spoken out against the damage of immigration, and defended middle-class internships. And his troops at Westminster have returned from their break feeling perkier than I have known them for a year. It may be the beneficial effect of a glorious English spring, but as we approach the first anniversary of the Coalition, those MPs who have wondered at times whose side he is on are rejoicing: “Finally, David is talking like a Tory.”

This is, in any case, a great moment for the Conservative cause. Tomorrow, our most precious institution will rejuvenate itself amid an outburst of national pride, exuberance and occasional silliness. Then, next Thursday, we will all get to vote in the referendum on the Alternative Vote. As polls suggest, and as senior figures in the Yes to AV camp privately concede, the first past the post system for electing MPs will almost certainly be preserved, and the constitutional fiddlers sent back to their think tanks to sulk. Campaigning has effectively stopped, drowned out by national festivities and popular indifference.

In the space of a week, therefore, we will have celebrated one institution and protected another from an act of vandalism – results that should put an extra bounce in the steps of Tories who have been waiting for evidence that the political breezes are turning their way. Mr Cameron has gone blue, and seen off the threat of AV, because his party jabbed him in the ribs and forced him to confront the cost of his complacency when he agreed to hold a referendum last year, and then assumed he could sit back and coast to victory. The initial polls soon showed otherwise, shocking No 10 into action.

If the No camp is indeed assured of victory, it is because a chastened Prime Minister ordered money and men poured into the battle, and allowed them to fight dirty. The squeals of complaint from Mr Clegg and his supporters tell us that Mr Cameron has shown ruthlessness against his enemies, a quality his colleagues feared he had lost.

Whichever side is declared the winner next Friday night, it has become fashionable to predict some kind of political Armageddon, as the Coalition partners turn on each other. But I suspect the truth will be far more ordinary. The Coalition will not buckle under the strain, not least because the strain will not be as great as many predict. As a party, the Lib Dems will be faced with little choice but to carry on with the deal they signed up to: pulling the plug over a minor issue such as AV, when they were willing to go along with public spending cuts, tuition fee rises and military action in Libya, would rightly be seen as laughable by the electorate, and punished accordingly. And those Lib Dems with red boxes will be reluctant to give up them up just because they disagree with the people’s verdict.

Nick Clegg, for his part, will accept the result – and the consequences. In this, I suspect he will surprise us: while he has been faulted for advertising the personal distress he and his family have felt when under attack, I detect a growing resilience in the Lib Dem leader. He has been tempered by adversity; I warrant that the eight months of abuse he has endured have toughened him more than we give him credit for. Those who work alongside Mr Clegg in No 10 express admiration for the way he is facing into the gale.

Still, Mr Cameron knows he needs to help his deputy get through the weekend after next. From the moment the Coalition was formed, he and George Osborne pinpointed this time as being problematic. So plans are in place, including a blanket ban on all language that might reinforce Lib Dem misery. There is to be no gloating; the Prime Minister does not want to say anything he might regret later.

You might think this a bit rich, given the nonsense that Conservatives on the No side have had to put up with from an increasingly hysterical Yes camp. It has taken a remarkable degree of restraint to stay silent when Mr Clegg accuses Mr Cameron of authorising lies and Chris Huhne threatens legal action against the Chancellor. But Tories know from long experience that Lib Dems operate in a state of perpetual hysteria, usually about each other. Revenge is best kept in the fridge; the Tories will save it for 2015. For the moment, they are laughing it off, as in Cabinet on Tuesday when Eric Pickles spotted Lady Warsi sitting next to the Deputy Prime Minister and asked him, mock-menacingly: “Is she bothering you?”

Those around Mr Cameron say there is no “second grid”, no set of surprise announcements cooked up in secret to bolster disappointed Lib Dems after May 5. Mr Clegg will be allowed to champion Lords reform as a consolation prize, although as previous Liberal leaders discovered to their cost, schemes for overhauling the Upper House usually disappear into the long grass. Nor is a reshuffle – the other weapon available to a leader who needs to distract attention from his difficulties – being schemed in. Instead, Mr Clegg will be afforded a period of discreet, slightly embarrassed silence while he toughs out the squalls that follow the failure of his pet project.

Labour finishes the AV campaign split down the middle, and the Lib Dem top ranks riven by feuds. But no one seriously buys the rumours being promoted by Ed Miliband’s team that the Prime Minister might call an election this year. On the contrary: he wants to avoid a contest on the existing constituency boundaries at all costs and will do anything necessary – including jettisoning underperforming ministers – to stave off a collapse of the Coalition until the bias in Labour’s favour has been corrected. Furthermore, yesterday’s anaemic growth figures underscore George Osborne’s belief that the Tories will not see the first rewards for the difficult choices made in their first year until 2013. So next month, Mr Cameron will instead focus on the big subjects that matter, with a major speech on the family, a renewed effort to promote welfare reform, and another go at the Big Society. Come May 6, it will be time to get back to governing.

In truth, it should outrage us that this referendum is taking place at all. The £80 million estimated cost of putting it on would be a shocking waste of money at any point, let alone when austerity is the order of the day. Valuable time has been wasted on an incomprehensible feud between political anoraks. Next Thursday’s result will confirm that England at least has no appetite for constitutional navel-gazing.

Perhaps it is made that way. Or perhaps it has seen what interminable debates about powers and processes have done to Scotland and Wales, which devolution has turned into uncompetitive, politically moribund subsidy junkies. Still, if it has brought out Mr Cameron’s inner Tory, then it might even have been worth it.