and david cameron often jokes in the past about nick clage as the party leader. so he constantly made fun of him in the past. and vice versa. so now these two leaders are put together in this sort of sudden coalition. and basically, the vision of them is to keep this coalition together is for five years. they're calling for a five-year fixed term parliament which is a new development for the united kingdom. my sense is that it's going to be difficult to keep this coalition together for five years. after all, there is not a great deal of common ground between the liberals and the conservatives. in fact, almost every single key issue there are fundamental disagreements. there are five liberal democrat cabinet out of 22. and i think that that is certainly a recipe for significant disagreement within the cabinet. so i hope certainly i hope this will succeed. but the practical reality is we're going to see a fractured relationship between these two parties. it remain to see how long this coalition will last. host: steven on our line for democrats from new york. go ahe

. >> what is to keep nick clage and david cameron from trying to form their own government and sort of move prime minister brown to the side? >> well, that's what they're trying to do today. they're having talks. the thing that is stop them are the fact that they're not natural bed fellows. the liberal democrats are very pro-european. the conservatives are euro skeptic to the point of being phobic. the liberal democrats have long since made proportion nal representation, a new voting system which they think will be fairer. the holy grail of their politics. the conservatives oppose it. the liberal democrats want to get rid of brittons nuclear deterrent. tried it. the liberal democrats are naturally a progressive party. and for them to prop up a right-wing party, which they oppose locally on the ground, will be quite a big leap for them. >> you touched briefly on the british markets. and what they're hoping to see. if this new government is not formed, let's say, by the end of the week, is this going to have some sort of long-term negative effect object british market and then by extensi