Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg’s PMQs challenge

Nick Clegg is taking Prime Minister’s Questions today, which will at least force the Lib Dem leader to turn up to a major Commons session, rather than bunking off to Cornwall. It’s not just good timing in terms of sorting out Clegg’s truancy rate, but also because Coalition ministers have been taking public pot shots at one another for the past week. Labour will want to exploit those divisions, but Clegg is unlikely to find many Tory backbenchers rallying to his cause, either. The behaviour of the Lib Dems has reminded a lot of Conservatives of their desire to sack the Lib Dems from the Coalition – a desire they still haven’t worked out how to fulfil and that won’t be fulfilled either.

While all the op-eds and interviews have at least given us something to write about during this rather dull final session of Parliament before the General Election (all the action yesterday was in the Lords, where the Coalition suffered its 100th defeat, this time on judicial review), they haven’t really taught us anything we didn’t know or expect about the tail end of this government.

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