Clegg bites back

Judging from the front page of tomorrow’s Independent on Sunday, the coalition’s relationship troubles are escalating. The paper’s front page blares, “Clegg rages against Cameron ‘lies’”.

Even accounting for the license headline writers takes, this shows just how fraught things are inside the coalition at the moment. The Liberal Democrats feel that the Tories have let the No campaign go too far in its’ attack on Clegg and so feel they are no longer bound to be respectful about their coalition partners. Vince Cable’s message in today’s Guardian sums up the sense of many Lib Dems that they’d rather be in coalition with Labour than the Tories.

There is a real danger that trust has been so strained by the last few weeks that the coalition will not be able to go back to its old, functioning ways after the AV referendum. Certainly, if Cameron and Clegg do a rose garden press conference in May, it will be a very different event than the last one.