Where it is appropriate, only one progressive candidate could stand in a seat – a sort of electoral pact.
Related: The Trans-Pacific Partnership suggests Obama has no sense of irony In late April, Obama angrily told reporters he was upset at those who called the Trans-Pacific pact a secret deal.
Like the more earnest characters in Star Wars, the leaders of minor parties who are angling for a pact always promise to bring balance to the Force.
However, some form of post-election pact between the two parties is a different matter altogether.
The Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP), Northern Ireland's only nationalist party represented at Westminster, has ruled out a general election pact with Sinn Féin.
It is a measure of the extent to which Cameron needs Clegg to survive that his next best hope is Ed Davey, the Lib Dem energy secretary, who has said that he finds it "incredibly difficult" to envisage another pact between his own party and the Tories.
The Business Roundtable, Washington's top business lobby group, had urged the Senate to pass TPA "without delay" arguing the trade pact would support US jobs and spur economic growth.
If Mr Bayrou takes most of his voters with him, Mr Sarkozy has just signed a suicide pact and the result will be not only personal defeat, but an implosion which his 10-year old party will struggle to contain in the face of a rebranded Le Pen.
He suggested this could pave the way to an electoral pact with individual Lib Dems not to stand against them at the next election: If certain Liberal Democrats were to promise to take the Conservative whip after the next election, then there is a case for not opposing those particular MPs.
While formally a free-trade pact, the Americans and the Europeans are very much aware that the TTIP is about much more than mere money.
Moreover, the deal must be ratified by all 28 government chiefs in the council of ministers, by no means a foregone conclusion: Greece's new ruling party Syriza has warned it has no intention of approving the pact.
