EARLIER this week, I compared the Coalition government with a marriage - suggesting this week was so painful it was like adultery being discovered.

In the light of yesterday's eye-popping election results, I now think David Cameron should be charged with domestic violence against poor Nick Clegg, his pulverised partner.

Leave aside, for a moment, the AV referendum drubbing - a crushing verdict, that kills the Lib Dem dream of electoral reform for many years to come.

The extraordinary aspect of the town hall voting was that - despite an economy on the floor, savage spending cuts and jobs gloom - the Conservatives emerged without a scratch.

Mr Cameron's party won 100+ seats and a handful of councils in England and, on their own figures, actually beat Labour in the popular vote - by 38 per cent, to 37 per cent. A Tory triumph, in the circumstances.

Such a result can only embolden Tory MPs who yearn to dump the Lib Dems - "duplicitous toerags", according to one unnamed minister yesterday - and believe a snap general election can be won outright.

That still appears inconceivable. Even if a majority could be won, Mr Cameron cannot collapse the Coalition - and is unlikely to want to, when culling of 50 seats will hand him a huge advantage, if he waits until 2015.

A quick divorce also appears unlikely from the other side of the marriage, because the Lib Dems are staring at an election meltdown judging by their unpopularity laid bare yesterday. The party is also broke.

All the talk yesterday, was of Mr Clegg finally flexing his muscles, of somehow reasserting Lib Dem "identity", of convincing people his government is not "like Thatcher's", in his own revealing words.

But what can Mr Clegg do to turn his fortunes around? Dilute the Health Bill? Vital - but not enough. Slow down the spending cuts? Dave and George won't allow it. House of Lords reform? Who cares about that?

No, the key decisions have been taken, the course is set and Mr Clegg's role in it - the hated fall guy - is sealed.

I believe the breach will come before 2015 - perhaps in 2013, before the rejigged seat boundaries are agreed - but the immediate future for the Deputy Prime Minister is marital misery heaped on misery.