How to Share in a Coalition

The Treasury team stepped out into the sunshine to announce George Osborne’s raft of cuts which aim to make recovery a sure thing – a wise move, as it’s always easier to disguise bad news in good weather.

There was a fair bit of tough news to swallow all round, but what intrigued me was the way that Osborne deferred to Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, when it came to handing out the truly hard-to-swallow news.

This is where the coaltion comes into its own for the Tories; they have more seats and more cabinet members than the Lib Dems, but they get to share the pain equally. Should these cuts in spending create a double dip recession, as Labour predicted, the Tories will work hard to offload the worst of it onto the shoulders of their coalition colleagues, as they did today.