Whitehall is falling in on Nick Clegg

The Cold War that everyone in Westminster thought would never kick off is well and truly under way. Time was when ministers and advisers imagined that the letters and internal briefing documents detailing the dirty laundry of this government would stay firmly locked in Whitehall desks. But in the past few weeks, the leaks have increased, and they seem to be spreading around the village. Nick Clegg was confronted with the latest on the World at One this afternoon: a document showing that the Cabinet Office has given the Deputy Prime Minister’s favourite free school meals policy a red rating, meaning it is at risk of failing.

Clegg tried to fight back, arguing that it was fully funded and that the proof of the pudding would be in the eating (he seemed curiously keen on food-related idiom today, including the ‘meat and potatoes’ of the Treaty of Rome, the ‘motherhood and apple pie’ in David Cameron’s EU policy, and ‘entrails’ emerging from Whitehall departments).