James Forsyth: The Lib Dems’ fight to keep facing both ways

This will be the coalition’s last full year, and it is remarkable how few people are talking about how it will all end. Last January, every conversation in Westminster was about when the two parties would disengage. Tory ministers were eyeing up the jobs that would be available once their coalition partners had left the cabinet table, Liberal Democrats mused on the ways that, once freed from the chains of office, they could demonstrate that they were a truly independent force. Now such chatter has gone. Instead, troops on both sides reluctantly accept that the coalition will continue until the election is called.

What’s changed? It’s all to do with Nick Clegg. His position is now the strongest it has been since his party entered -government, and he’s convinced that walking out early would damage the public’s view both of the Lib Dems and of coalitions in general. Not all his cabinet colleagues agree, of course.