Clegg agrees to let more coalition differences show in public

The degree to which ministers should let differences within the coalition shown in public was much debated in the second-half of the year, and I’ve blogged several times about the advantages of doing just that. So the latest news from Nick Clegg on this is very welcome:

The Liberal Democrats plan to air future disagreements with their Conservative partners in public as Nick Clegg attempts to assert a more distinctive identity for his party in a new phase for the coalition…

In a shift of tactics for the coalition, which was launched by the two party leaders in the Downing Street garden last May, the deputy prime minister said: “David Cameron and I are leaders of two separate parties. Both of us are acutely aware of that. We are acutely aware that when we sit down every day dealing with difficult decisions together we start from the starting point that we don’t fully agree.” (The Guardian)

The way the world doesn’t end if you admit circumstances have forced on you some results which you would rather not have was, in a slightly different context, shown by Conservative minister Mark Harper earlier this week. During the House of Commons debate about giving (or rather, restoring) the vote to some prisoners Harper said:

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering opened the debate in a perfectly helpful way by quoting my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who made it clear that he does not want to make this change. To be frank, it is not something that I want to do, and I believe that many Government Members would rather not do it, but we do not have a choice. We have a legal obligation.

That sort of frankness about his own views does Mark Harper credit, and given that his ministerial role means he works very closely with Nick Clegg, perhaps that approach is rubbing off a little…

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are also keen to express their own differences, as in ConservativeHome’s report on policy making:

It’s clearly important that the [Conservative] Party has its own policy-making programme up and running well before the next election – and that it isn’t merged by stealth with that of the Liberal Democrats. (The Downing Street Policy Unit can make policy only for the Coalition, not the Party.) … Today, there’s encouraging news to report. Oliver Letwin has written a letter to all MPs headed: “Conservative Party policy development”.

The piece goes on to detail the policy-making plans. Where Liberal Democrat policy making is at is something I’ll return to in a future piece.