Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Double act

It's tempting to think of classic double acts when faced with Clegg and Cameron

That's the hope, of course. Those of us who grew up with Cannon & Ball and Little & Large as Saturday teatime treats might disagree, but it's nice to have a different kind of dynamic going on at the top of politics, rather than the idea of just one guy running it all. The more cruel observers might suggest a different kind of double act might be at work here

or, given Simon Cowell's celebrity endorsement for Cameron, that one of his bland double acts might come to mind when we consider the Cam/Clegg interface

but I don't think that's entirely fair. Not yet anyway. We can but keep our fingers crossed and pray that it all stays sweet between the two of them and they don't start to bicker

or, worse, that the cracks don't start to show over political issues

or it could lead to drastic measures taking place at No 10

but we'll see. The essence of a good double act is chemistry, timing and a dynamic between the two. It's no use just being the same person twice, which is a little bit of what we've seen so far from Clegg and Cameron. You always sense, with the greatest double acts, that there's a bit of tension between the two - when Ernie told Eric he wanted to call it a day, for example, when Chas and Dave finally stopped touring, or when Schnorbitz started getting bigger laughs than Bernie Winters. There's got to be a bit of needle below the surface.

The question is what kind of relationship the two of them are going to have. It's going to be easy for Clegg to be portrayed as the subordinate, as David Steele was during the days of the Liberal/SDP Alliance by Spitting Image

but it remains to be seen how kind - or otherwise - satirists are towards our new Ant & Dec of politics. Are they going to be kind to Clegg, or start to portray him as the lesser partner, the smaller man? Or - worse for Cameron - what happens if Clegg is ever seen as being the real brains of the outfit, and Cameron becomes the dopey one? Will it be long before the two of them start merging into one big ghastly Brundlefly? Or will they be able to keep their identities separate, despite it all?

Fun times ahead.

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