David Cameron and Nick Clegg move like sharks to keep the coalition going

If a shark stops moving it dies. In the Prime Minister and deputy Prime Minister’s office, they believe that the same applies to the coalition. Their view is that if it is going to make it to 2015, it needs to be doing things right up until parliament is dissolved and the election called.

To this end, as I reveal in the column this week, they’ve commissioned Oliver Letwin, David Laws and Jo Johnson to sit down and see what else the coalition can do between now and 2015. One of those involved in the talks says ‘we’re pretty confident we can still do deals on various things.’

The hope is that a few more big policy initiatives will act as a counterweight to the temptation for the coalition parties to pull apart as the election approaches. I’m told that the question of what new policy areas to look at will be a subject of a meeting of the Prime Minister and deputy Prime Minister’s key advisers in the next few days.