This is all absurdly premature, in spite of the dramas of recent days. Time travel is a fun idea. But it doesn't happen. When the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats formed their coalition in 2010, they agreed to a five-year fixed-term parliament. That five-year span has duly remained a pillar of the coalition programme. Yesterday both David Cameron and Nick Clegg reiterated their commitment to it - although in marginally different language, perhaps significantly.
Back in 2010, to speculate about the means by which governing together in coalition might eventually elide into competing against one another in the 2015 election was an issue for nerds. New ministers considered it a distant bridge, to be crossed nearer to the time. An issue for summer 2014, I recall being told.
Now the speculation has resumed, and it goes wider than the nerd community. Coalition separation has unexpectedly become a live issue in summer 2013 - a reflection, in part, of tough economic times. But this is "Dad, I'm bored, are we there yet?" politics. We are witnessing a bad case of the wear and tear that affects any government, nothing more. Stuff happens.
Cameron and Clegg are not whistling in the wind when they say the coalition will continue till 2015. They mean it. Contrary to the impression some of their members like to give, their parties have an interest in it. Remember, absolutely crucially, that on its central strategic priority of tackling the deficit and attempting to restore growth amid public sector cuts, the coalition actually remains united. It is a unity that will have been strengthened by recent economic indicators and yesterday by the IMF's cautiously supportive verdict. That is not going to change.
So it's not the economy but the voters - and perhaps the press - who have pushed separation up the agenda. Even so, this is predominantly a Tory development. A deep resentment at having to share power with people whom many of them despise, under a prime minister who, whatever he says in his emails, doesn't seem to take his own party seriously, has made a significant part of the Conservative party reckless.
Self-evidently it is Ukip that has been the catalyst, bringing doubts to the surface and rattling both governing parties far in advance of the general election. Again, though, it is the Tories who are driving the clamour. The Ukip surge in the polls - it was at 22% in a Survation poll last weekend - is here to stay, at least for now. A Ukip victory in May 2014's European parliament elections is almost taken as read in many Tory quarters.
This only increases the panic factor, pushing many Tories to try to recapture, as they see it, votes that have haemorrhaged to the right because Cameron is stuck in the centre with Clegg. That Tory pressure may eventually cause problems within the Lib Dems, who are anxious not to be dragged further rightwards, thus allowing Labour to stake a further claim for traditional Lib Dem voters. But so far there is not much sign of it, whatever the Tory press may claim. Cameron and Clegg each tried to calm their parties yesterday by asserting that the coalition will not buckle. In spite of all the pressures, they are almost certainly right. Unlike the press, with its collective interest in weak government (especially after Leveson), the parties still have an overriding interest in the success of the coalition, not its premature failure. The IMF report probably gave useful international weight to the two leaders' assurances.
Admittedly, two years is a long time in the current mood of politics. And the coalition has undoubtedly become more difficult to manage than it was in the first half of its term. The audacity and scale of rebellion among Tories - last week 116 rebels on Europe, this week 133 against gay marriage - is unprecedented. James Wharton's EU referendum private member's bill will provide the next focus - guaranteed to make a mockery of Cameron's attempt to put a lock on the party's Europe rows in yesterday morning's Today programme interview.
Clegg's speech yesterday, in which he accused Tory MPs of game-playing and rebuked them for attempting to push the coalition off the centre ground, was not a speech he would have given in the first half of this parliament. In spirit it was not the sort of speech he would have wanted to give for at least another year, either. But it was very significant all the same, for two reasons.
First, it was a firm defence of the coalition government against its enemies on the Tory benches. In fact it was a much firmer defence of the coalition than Cameron, stylishly ducking and weaving in his radio interview, would now dare to make. Cameron may be the more natural communicator, but it was Clegg who sounded more like a statesman.
Second, and even more interestingly, it was a robust defence of coalition and centre-ground government in general. The section in which Clegg calmly rehearsed the reasons why voters should continue to like coalitions and centrist politics - which have been under almost constant attack since 2010 - was especially effective. "Neither left nor right but forward" may be pretty vacuous, but it could be smart politics. The speech was a timely reminder that the Lib Dems are not dead yet, not least because they continue to lay claim to something important.
The Tory-Lib Dem coalition has certainly not ended up where it thought it was heading three years ago. The larger centre-right project of creating a liberal-conservative alternative to social democracy has been destroyed by rightwing Tory MPs and by the obsession with leaving Europe.
But the British experiment with coalition has proved more resilient - which is just as well, in view of the increasingly four-party message from the opinion polls. That's why Labour, prodded by Andrew Adonis's recent writings and interviews, is again beginning to face up to the possibility. Whatever your view of Clegg, he is the one party leader who believes in coalitions as well as having a self-interest in them. In spite of everything that has happened since 2010, he may well find himself, two years from now, in the right place at the right time once again.
This article appeared on p47 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Thursday 23 May 2013. It was published on guardian.co.uk at 07.00 BST on Thursday 23 May 2013. 
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