Ministers poised for tense meeting - Belfast Telegraph

Tuesday, 10 May 2011

Coalition ministers are set to debate face-to-face across the Cabinet table amid significantly-heightened tensions between the Westminster government partners.

It is the first meeting since Thursday's ballot box mauling for the Liberal Democrats, who suffered severe losses in local elections and saw voting reform decisively rejected by the public.

Party leaders insisted at the weekend that the results would not prevent the power-sharing administration getting on with the business of running the country. But Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has signalled his intent to demonstrate more Lib Dem muscle - with Tory-led NHS reforms the battleground yesterday for early skirmishes in the Commons.

The Government escaped a damaging rebellion in a Labour-called vote against the health shake-up but saw its majority cut to 53, with several Liberal Democrat MPs deliberately staying away. One, backbencher Andrew George, registered a deliberate abstention after suggesting there was so much wrong with the legislation that it should be ripped up entirely.

The plans are being reviewed after Health Secretary Andrew Lansley was forced to call a "pause" amid mounting criticism at Westminster and among many health professionals. A "listening exercise" is to continue into next month as ministers wrestle with the thorny issue of how far to change Mr Lansley's blueprint for reform.

Mr Clegg has threatened to veto the reforms unless they are substantially improved as part of attempts to reassert his party's independence after last week's bruising.

Despite accepting the need for "substantive" changes, however, a defiant Mr Lansley has refused to abandon the "principles" of the reforms. He said the Coalition Agreement "supports essentially all of the principles of the Bill" apart from scrapping some NHS bodies - which had been agreed by Lib Dem ministers.

Labour leader Ed Miliband told his MPs that they should turn their fire from the Liberal Democrats to the "real political enemy" - the Conservatives.

He also faced some criticism from backbenchers at the weekly meeting of the party's MPs and peers over disappointing election results - especially in Scotland - and his decision to side wit the losing Yes camp in the referendum on using the Alternative Vote system to elect MPs.

He told MPs he had taken on the leadership knowing it would be "a long haul not an easy sprint" and that the party had shown its "ability to unite" and to "know where the enemy is".