Tories and Lib Dems strike deal on mansion tax vote

Further to Isabel’s post this morning, I understand from a senior coalition source that the two parties have now reached an agreement on how to handle Tuesday’s vote on Labour’s mansion tax motion. The Liberal Democrat leadership has assured their coalition partners that they’ll back a government amendment to it.

This amendment will concede that the coalition parties have different views on the issue. The only question now is whether the speaker John Bercow will call it.

I suspect that this agreement has been helped by a desire to limit coalition tensions post-Eastleigh and pre-Budget. There is also reluctance on the part of the Liberal Democrats to get dragged into playing Labour’s game. The sense is that they’ll only do that at a time of their own choosing.