Easter storms cloud coalition's future
Tuesday, 26 April 2011 11:35 AM
Ministers are attempting to get back to governing after a bitter Easter weekend of coalition infighting.
As the nation gears up for a week of celebrations ahead of Friday's royal wedding, the coalition government's senior members confronted each other in a Cabinet meeting.
Over the weekend energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne suggested that "untruths" told by senior Conservative figures during the campaign could impair the Liberal Democrats' ability to work with the Tories in government.
"We have a job to do in the coalition and it's going to be a lot more difficult if you don't have the same respect for colleagues because they have departed so far from the foundations of truth respect has clearly gone," he said.
He singled out David Cameron, George Osborne and William Hague as having been among those behind the "smears".
Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has demanded a rewriting of the coalition's working arrangements as a result of the bad-tempered campaign, the Times reported.
It suggested the Lib Dems could demand more public disagreements with the Tories over government policies, as the junior party struggles to wield sufficient influence within the coalition.
Such a move could help the Lib Dem leader shrug off growing criticism from his party's grassroots and left-leaning MPs.
A Lib Dem councillor on Liverpool council, Gary Millar, defected to Labour this morning, citing the tuition fees decision and government spending cuts as reasons. Lib Dem MP Adrian Sanders has accused Mr Clegg of being an "opportunist careerist".
The deputy prime minister's outspoken attacks against David Cameron in one newspaper interview are being seen as a response to the concerns which triggered these moves.
"I see all this stuff about how we are somehow mates," he told the Independent on Sunday, referring to Mr Cameron.
"We are not. We are not there to become friends. I didn't come into this coalition government to look for friends."
His attacks against the prime minister on the alternative vote referendum, which has seen a bitter campaign marred by allegations of financial impropriety and personal political slurs, were also significant. Mr Clegg accused Mr Cameron of offering "lies, misinformation and deceit".
He added: "The 'yes' campaign has had to fight a campaign against a headwind of lies, misinformation and deceit, and that's been tough on them."
Tory backbenchers' attitude towards their Lib Dem colleagues on the government benches appears to have hardened during the campaign.
"Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne should stop their whingeing," Mark Pritchard, MP for the Wrekin, said.
"With each of them presiding over major government departments they've never had it so good.
"Their personal and political sacrifices are infinitesimal compared to those made by the hundreds of public sector workers losing their jobs each week."
Bookies have cut the odds that the coalition survives until 2015 as a result of the long weekend's ructions. William Hill offered odds of 1/2 that it fails to do so, and 6/4 that it makes it that far.
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