What Norman Baker’s departure tells us about the Coalition – and about Theresa May

What does Norman Baker’s exit from the Home Office tell us about the coalition? In many ways, the situation in that department was quite unlike any other, but if another Lib Dem does fancy going in a blaze of fury, then Justice Minister Simon Hughes was assigned to his department for similar trouble-making reasons, and apparently ranks second in the great league table of problematic coalition relationships. But Norman Baker was sent in to antagonise a Home Secretary notorious for micromanaging ministers from her own party, let alone those from another. As Damian Green pointed out on the Today programme, Baker had told his local paper he was the ‘Lib Dem Home Secretary’ and had acted accordingly once installed in the department.

Green was deliciously biting about Baker in his interview, saying in a polite and kindly tone that ‘he was a guitarist who was only interested in his own solos while the rest of the band was trying to play a close harmony number’.