EVEN if polls and betting odds merely reflect fickle and fleeting public opinion, rather than predicting eventual outcomes, there must be a few red-faced political scientists and smiling bookies around at present.

Be that as it may, perhaps the era of not loving coalitions, at least in peace-time, is over.

However, British politics will be poorer for Evan Harris’s temporary, or permanent, departure.

DAVID DIMENT, Riverside Close, Oxford