When one half of a couple threatens to walk out if he doesn’t get his way and the other responds by threatening to call in the lawyers, it’s obvious that all is not well.
When one half of a couple threatens to walk out if he doesn’t get his way and the other responds by threatening to call in the lawyers, it’s obvious that all is not well. But this is the state of the coalition at the moment. The row between the two parties over Andrew Lansley’s proposed reforms to the National Health Service is in danger of turning into an argument that neither side ever forgets — or forgives.
It was Sunday lunchtime when this row went fully public. Norman Lamb, Nick Clegg’s chief parliamentary and political adviser, went on television and announced that he would resign if substantial changes were not made to the coalition’s Health and Social Care Bill. It was a spectacular intervention and one that the Tories suspected must have been made with Clegg’s prior knowledge.
Inside No. 10 there was furious muttering that this was an underhand plot to ensure that the Liberal Democrats could present changes to the bill as a victory over the Tories. The Cameroons, who know that Cameron’s status as a different kind of Tory is built around his respect for the NHS, are acutely sensitive about any hint of a suggestion that the Prime Minister is just another Tory who hates socialised medicine.
Lansley’s Department of Health responded by reminding the Liberal Democrats that their interference could open the whole process up to judicial review. If the fundamental principles of the bill are changed after it has passed through the committee stage in the House of Commons, there’s a risk that a review could be granted on the grounds of a lack of parliamentary scrutiny.
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