Next Gen News

• Simon Hughes wants Lib Dem veto over policy
• An alliance with the Labour Party in the future continue to favor
• Clegg defends arrangement with Tories
On the morning of the day • Read Haroon Siddique 'summary

10.43am: Hughes's comments calling for a veto for Lib Dem MPs in the coalition were made in an interview with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, which also contained some interesting comments from the former Labour cabinet minister Jack Straw.

The shadow justice secretary said he was "relieved" when the Lib Dems went into coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour partly because the "arithmetic was profoundly against us" but also because there is an "inherent suspicion of Liberal Democrats in the Labour party, which is very deep-seated". That may dampen Hughes's enthusiasm for a future coalition with Labour.

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10:33 am: In the comments section below, makecoalition history quotes from a UK Polling Report article that observes that the Guardian story on its ICM poll focused on public backing for the economy, instead of the "rather striking finding" that Labour and the Tories are "neck and neck".

Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report writes:

There is a new ICM poll in the Guardian tomorrow that probably isn't what David Cameron hoped for on his 100th day in power. Topline voting intention figures are Con 37% (-1), Lab 37% (+3), Lib Dem 18% (-1). This is the first time an ICM poll has shown Labour catching the Conservatives since October 2007 and the election that never was.

There is a separate analysis piece in the Guardian about the party's support ratings, based on the ICM poll. Tom Clark writes:

The Conservatives have mislaid their lead but it is Labour, and more especially the Liberal Democrats, that ought to worry. That is the paradoxical message of today's Guardian/ICM poll, which shows a leaderless Labour party drawing level with the Tories for the first time since Gordon Brown's disastrous dalliance with a snap poll in the autumn of 2007.

Buoyed by strong personal ratings, David Cameron need not be fazed by news that the two main parties are each on 37%, with the Lib Dems on 18%. In the novel settings of coalition, the opposition party can catch up with the principal party of government without threatening the prime minister. And after 100 days at the helm, he remains secure â€" in charge of a government that most voters believe is doing a good job. Consequently, Labour should draw little comfort from the results.

Nor should Nick Clegg. This week he is stepping in as the face of the government during David Cameron's holiday, but the new poll finds his party is paying a price for power.

10.00am: Some other highlights from today's papers.

Daily Mirror has an interview, which contrasts with 1 in the Guardian this morning. It was found that 57% of people believe that the coalition government in the UK draws double-dip recession. He recorded Lib Dem support at 15%, with Labour on 33% and the Tories on 39%, figures Mirror describes as "accident" for Clegg.

In the Financial Times, Tony Travers of the London School of Economics brandsCoalition members "liberal" anarchists "and said that they spend" a radical experiment in British government:

The previous government believed in summoning all the power of the state to bear down on needs such as poverty, educational performance and hospital waiting lists. The "third" sector is not, by its nature, designed to be comprehensive. Councils are anyway cutting back on funding for voluntary organisations as they prepare for austerity. As a result, Mr Cameron's moves to shift power downwards will almost certainly lead to more "postcode lotteries". The government will need to explain to the electorate that Whitehall is no longer acting as guarantor of uniform public provision and that, say, GPs in Wiltshire may have different priorities to those in Newcastle, or that there is only one full-time library in some areas.

The real test of this emerging model, however, will be where it goes next. The logic of the coalition's moves to date, for example, suggests it might allow different benefit levels in different parts of the country. Discretionary services could be stopped altogether in some areas, or charges introduced for services that are now free to users.

Trust the Daily Telegraph to feature a piece arguing the coalition "haven't yet managed to break government's addiction to higher spending". Andrew Haldenby, director of the Reform thinktank, writes:

Compounding the coalition's budgetary profligacy is its failure to deliver on its ambition to rethink the role of government. The budget in June imposed a freeze on some elements of public spending (such as child benefit and public sector pay) for two or three years, but left the structure of public services intact, with all its manifest inefficiencies.

9.49am: Despite being on holiday, David Cameron has made time for an interview with the Sun marking the coalition's first 100 days. My colleague Paul Owen picks out the highlights:

David Cameron has used this interview to point out that he learned from Margaret Thatcher and New Labour to move fast as a government and take big decisions early on. He told the paper:

"One of the lessons I learned, not just from Margaret Thatcher but also from what happened under Labour, is you've got to act early. That is the time to take difficult decisions. You have a limited time to use the goodwill that you have to try and turn that into concrete results. When it [a new government] comes in, the golden moments are at the beginning."

He said the coalition government had "achieved more than I expected" so far. His biggest regret so far was not getting banks to give more loans to businesses. "That would definitely be on my list of where we have still got to keep pushing and get the actions right," he said, although he suggested no concrete measures to do this. Gordon Brown used to talk a lot about the responsibilities of the job in a way that made them sound like a difficult burden, but Cameron is relentlessly upbeat about the challenge of being prime minister:

"I am a relatively confident person. But you often wake up in the morning and look at the diary and think, 'Right, there is a whole set of stuff today which I have never done in my life before. I had better make sure I do it properly.'"

9:24 am: Aside from the poll, guardian.co.uk has plenty more coverage of the first 100 days of the coalition elsewhere on the site.

Paul Lewis traveled the country , finding a north-south divide in reaction to the spending cuts. He writes:

Few people seem to query the need for drastic spending cuts. But the further one travels away from Cameron's constituency [Witney], the more support for his government appears to be wavering.

Elsewhere, Jonathan Freedland writes:

Some predicted that the only way the government would achieve domestic tranquillity was by not doing very much. Those expectations have also been confounded. Indeed, the scale of this administration's ambition has been its biggest surprise. Not content with a plan to wrestle the deficit to the ground and then transform it into a surplus within five years â€" a goal that would count as challenge enough to most governments â€" the Cleggerons have launched one grand scheme after another.

An excellent interactive shows the key relationships in the coalition and how well they are working.

Marina Hyde has taken a more light-hearted look at the relationship between the prime minister and his deputy, comparing them to partners in a buddy movie:

No one could deny Clegg has made obvious attempts to carve out a niche for himself in the set-up. For a while, he seemed to be affecting the pose of the crazy one in a buddy cop film. This guy literally doesn't care! He's going to stand at the dispatch box and pin an illegal war on Jack Straw's ass!

Unfortunately, while these kinds of unconventional methods work well for Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, in Nick's line of work they required the scrambling of civil servants to explain he was speaking in a personal capacity, with Downing Street declaring tightly: "These are long-held views of the deputy prime minister."

9.07am:Titles so far on this 100th day of the coalition

• The Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes called today for Lib Dem MPs to have a veto on policies put forward by the coalition government. He also indicated a coalition with Labour at the next election could be "on the agenda", saying "the idea of a centre left, of a progressive liberal Britain, is still very much for me what I am here to achieve".

• Nick Clegg was on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning. He painted a picture of perfect harmony with the Conservatives. He rejected the suggestion that his party was losing its distinctiveness within the coalition but at the same time refused to name any area of disagreement, even when asked about the immigration cap. Clegg said people should be pleased when politicians agree.

• A Guardian/ICM poll has found public backing for the coalition's cuts-based recovery strategy for the economy. Of those polled, 44% said the coalition was doing a good job in securing economic recovery against 37% who said it was doing a bad job.

8:37 am: Some details of the comments made by the Lib Dem deputy leader this morning, from the Press Association.

Hughes told the BBC:

If the coalition wants to deliver [parliamentary] votes, neither party on its own has a majority, so we have to make sure everyone is brought into that. As matter of practical politics... the parliamentary party on behalf of the wider party on big issues has to be able to say: "No, we can't go down this road."

He added that a coalition between Labour and his party was still "on the agenda", perhaps by the time of the next general election in 2015. Last weekend he ruled out any suggestion that Tories and the Lib Dems could agree not to run candidates against each other in seats that were clearly winnable for one or other of the parties at the next election.

8.29am: Not a very revealing performance by Clegg on the Today programme. He painted a picture of perfect harmony within the coalition, refusing to identify any subject on which the Tories and Lib Dems disagreed. Perhaps, given the Conservatives' positive poll rating, he sees aligning the Lib Dems as closely as possible with the Tories as the way to revive his own party's flagging poll ratings?

Or maybe he was slapped down for the comments he made on Monday about it being "difficult for someone who is going to receive less housing benefit because of the changes ... to understand why, at the same time, we should spend huge, huge amounts of money in a hurry on replacing Trident in full". Interestingly, Davis did not ask him about the story the Today programme is leading on, deputy Lib Dem leader Simon Hughes calling for backbenchers to have a veto on ideas put forward by coalition ministers.

8:23 am: In a year's time you'll have lost the referendum on AV, you'll be at 15% in the polls and you'll have retrenched the state, says Davis. Will you be happy about that?

Clegg rubbishes Davis's "crystal ball". He hopes that in five years' time he will be able to say the coalition took difficult decisions but the economy is growing again, the economy is more balanced, they've protected civil liberties, increased social mobility and created a greener economy. "It's a government for the long term," he says.

And with that the interview is over.

8.20am: How do you maintain your distinctiveness from the Tories?

You have to work with people you don't agree with in life, says Clegg. Cutting the fiscal deficit is "something I was very clear about in opposition" â€" I think a lot of people will disagree with that statement. Pushed by Davis to name something the coalition partners disagree on, Clegg just won't rise to the bait, even when asked about an immigration cap, which the Lib Dems vehemently opposed before the election. I'm waiting for Davis to ask him about Trident. Clegg says you shouldn't complain when politicians get on.

8.16am: Is social mobility a theme that you are promoting? Have the Conservatives taken persuading?

It's something we have to do, says Clegg. He says it's right not to hand on our debts to the next generation. "We are far too segregated a society." It's too easy predict where a person will end up from their background, he says.

8.14am:The first question Evan Davis announced plans today 's documents in order to reduce the middle class

"It would be irresponsible of me to comment on any fleeting rumour...we haven't taken decisions yet," Clegg says.

8.08am: Welcome to the 100th day of the coalition. How has it been for you? Nick Clegg will be marking the occasion with a speech on social mobility in which he will confirm the appointment of former Labour cabinet minister Alan Milburn as the coalition's social mobility tsar. But his thunder has been stolen by his deputy leader Simon Hughes calling for backbenchers to have a veto on ideas put forward by coalition ministers. We'll be following all the developments today right here and we'd love to hear you thoughts. First up, very shortly, is Clegg on the Today programme.