In this together

Jeremy Browne looks more like a young subaltern preparing to go to India in 1860 than a typical Lib Dem. He stands ramrod straight, his reddish hair has an officer-class cut. He is always impeccably dressed. Whitehall gossip has it that when he was first appointed to the Foreign Office, the officials couldn’t believe that he was the Lib Dem. He is also, unlike many in his party, comfortable with being in power. ‘I don’t want Liberal Democrats to think we are having to endure these five years of government before we can breathe a sigh of relief, let our hair down and return to the relative comfort of opposition,’ he tells me.

When we meet in a drab Westminster interview room, Browne is in robust form. Being moved in the recent reshuffle from the Foreign Office to the Home Office has propelled him back into the domestic political fray and he is determined to take aim at those within his party who prefer ‘the comforts of powerlessness’ to governing.