In the past few years, Nick Clegg has come to blows with his party activists at his annual conference question-and-answer session over the policies his party has had to support while in government. The Deputy Prime Minister has, at times, grown rather grumpy as the grassroots harangue him on issues they wish he’d show more of a backbone on. But he’s just emerged from today’s Q&A entirely unscathed. The only point of difference was over assisted dying, which is a free vote for MPs anyway, and which Clegg disagrees with.
But the Deputy Prime Minister didn’t even need to defend what his party did to activists. There are a number of reasons for this. The first is that the party is getting more comfortable with government, and of course the first few years would be rocky. The second is that the Coalition has moved on from the initial phase where the two parties appeared to assimilate, and into an openly fractious but internally comfortable relationship where differences are aired and Cabinet ministers swear at one another.
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