The breakdown of Clegg’s Cabinet alliances

There used to be a time when some of the most important relationships in the government were between Tory reformers and Nick Clegg. The Lib Dem leader, to his credit, tilted the scales in favour of radicalism in both education and welfare.

But those reformist alliances are now pretty much over. Indeed, Ken Clarke – with his plans to put rehabilitation first in the justice system – is the only Tory Cabinet minister who remains in a strategic alliance with the Deputy Prime Minister.

Iain Duncan-Smith’s relations with the Lib Dems have soured over the issue of family policy. On the education front, the Clegg-Gove axis is clearly at an end following Nick Clegg’s speech today, and the briefing that preceded it.

This means that we’re now entering a more zero-sum period of the coalition. There’s a growing, and depressing, belief on both sides that the best kind of win is when you get one over on your coalition partners.