British Prime Minister David Cameron appears to contradict his deputy over a recently announced policy on the hiring of interns in government.
Tensions are rising between Cameron's centre-right Conservatives and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's junior Liberal Democrats ahead of an array of polls next month in which Clegg's centre-left party is forecast to do badly.
Analysts say there is little prospect of a split in the ruling alliance, but they expect both sides to stress their differences in the run-up to the May 5 polls.
Cameron said in a newspaper interview he was "very relaxed" about the informal granting of intern positions, despite Clegg announcing this month the ending of such positions in government in order to improve social mobility.
Clegg had protested that internships, which can boost young people's job prospects, were too often confined to the "sharp-elbowed and well-connected".
From 2012 all civil service internships will be advertised on a central website and the government will encourage businesses to be more transparent about the internships on offer.
However, Cameron told the Daily Telegraph he had invited a neighbour to an internship and intended to carry on doing so.
"In the modern world, of course you're always going to have internships and interns - people who come and help in your office who come through all sorts of contacts, friendly, political, whatever. I do that and I'll go on doing that. I feel very relaxed about it," he said.
A spokesman for Cameron's Downing Street office said the prime minister supported the coalition's policies to improve social mobility.
He said the intern attended a local state-run comprehensive school and would be working at Cameron's constituency office in Oxfordshire, west of London, and not in government.
Clegg told BBC TV that "plum internships" should be based on ability, not contacts.
"There is no point being in government unless you try and make things more open and fairer. That's what I am trying to do to give people who don't have the right connections the chance nonetheless to get ahead," he said.
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