Gove: Lib Dems think we’re anti-apple pie, cream and custard. Clegg: We’re being grown up about Coalition

The Coalition is merely cohabiting now – that much has been clear for a while. But one partner doesn’t seem to acknowledge quite how unreasonable its behaviour is. The Lib Dems have been cheesing off the Tories with what have appeared to be an increasing number of increasingly heated attacks: from David Laws wading into the Ofsted row to Ed Davey attacking ‘diabolical’ and ‘wilfully ignorant’ Tories, and from even ‘native’ Danny Alexander making dire (but specific) threats about his dead body and taxation to Nick Clegg describing George Osborne’s call for further cuts in welfare spending after 2015 as a ‘monumental’ mistake. But today at his monthly press conference, Clegg denied that his party was pursuing an aggressive policy of differentiation. He launched into quite a soliloquy about coalition, saying:

‘It’s just nonsense, complete nonsense. The Coalition is what it says on the tin. It is two parties, acting together, governing together in the national interest.