Tapes reveal Lib Dem contempt for Tory 'partners'

Published by Jon Land for 24dash.com in Central Government

The personal animosity of a number of Liberal Democrat ministers towards David Cameron and George Osborne has been laid bare.

The Prime Minister's sincerity was questioned and the Chancellor was said to "get up one's nose" by Lib Dem members of the coalition Government secretly taped by undercover reporters.

The Daily Telegraph revealed that Care Minister Paul Burstow told who he thought to be Lib Dem voters: "I don't want you to trust David Cameron."

Local Government Minister Andrew Stunell said he did not know where Mr Cameron stood on the "sincerity monitor".

David Heath, deputy leader of the Commons, suggested multi-millionaire Mr Osborne was out of touch.

"George Osborne has a capacity to get up one's nose, doesn't he?" he said.

"I mean, what I think is, some of them just have no experience of how ordinary people live, and that's what worries me. But maybe again, you know, that's part of our job, to remind them."

Transport Minister Norman Baker admitted: "I don't like George Osborne very much."

The latest disclosures will further test the Tory-Lib Dem coalition, which has been put under the microscope in recent days by the Telegraph's secret recordings of what ministers thought were private conversations.

Business Secretary Vince Cable was left clinging to his position after it was revealed he claimed to have declared war on Rupert Murdoch's media empire and blocked News Corporation's bid to take full control of BSkyB.

Tory MPs are furious that Mr Cable and other Lib Dems have taken ministerial jobs but have told what they assumed to be constituents that they stand strongly opposed to the Conservatives and aspects of the Government's work.

Mr Cameron and Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg have sought to play down the significance of the differences within the coalition and focus on its work.

But the transcripts of conversations with Lib Dem ministers demonstrate that some do not share Mr Clegg's closeness with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.

Of Mr Cameron, Mr Stunell told the undercover reporters: "I don't know where I put him on the sincerity monitor." He added: "Is he sincere? I do not know how to answer that question."

Mr Burstow said: "I don't want you to trust David Cameron... in the sense that you believe he's suddenly become a cuddly Liberal. Well, he hasn't.

"He's still a Conservative and he has values that I don't share."

Mr Baker said some of his Conservative colleagues were "beyond the pale".

"I mean, there are Tories who are quite good and there are Tories who are, you know, beyond the pale, and, you know, you have to just deal with the cards you've got," he said.

Mr Baker said he did not like Mr Osborne very much, although Justice Secretary Ken Clarke was "all right" and there were "the ones you can do business with".

"But what you end up doing in the coalition... is we play them off against each other," he added.

Tory minister Oliver Letwin tried to heal any coalition divisions by stressing the two parties' similarities and insisting both stood to benefit at the polls from the Government's success.

In an interview with The Guardian, Mr Letwin insisted: "There are very strong bonds now. We have come to trust one another."

Mr Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for co-ordinating government policy, denied that the Tories would benefit more from the coalition than the Lib Dems.

"If people feel four and a half years from now that this was a government that cured the deficit, kept the public services intact and indeed improved them, gave people more power over their lives, they will re-elect us," he said.

"Will the Conservatives or will the Liberal Democrats benefit? The answer is both. We're both going to be judged by the same standards at the end."

But Labour sought to keep up the pressure on the coalition after Mr Cable was hastily stripped of responsibility for media competition and News Corp's takeover bid of BSkyB.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell took legal advice before sanctioning the move to switch the responsibilities to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Shadow business secretary John Denham questioned whether Mr Cable had broken the ministerial code and whether Mr Hunt was a "fit and proper person" to take on the case.

He pointed to an article by Mr Hunt in which he praised Mr Murdoch and said that the News Corp bid did not represent a "substantial change".

Mr Denham said: "It is very hard to see how any decision Jeremy Hunt makes will enjoy complete confidence."

There were further Labour questions about Mr Hunt after it emerged he had already held a meeting with Mr Murdoch's son, James Murdoch, the chairman of BSkyB and chief executive of News Corp in Europe and Asia.

The meeting took place on June 28, shortly after News Corp announced its BSkyB takeover offer, and was not attended or minuted by officials.

Former Liberal Party leader Lord David Steel told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think that Liberal Democrats in the country will be cheered to see that so many of their colleagues in Government are fighting their corner."

And Tory ex-Cabinet minister Peter Lilley said that despite the latest revelations, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems might fight the next general election on a joint ticket.

"I can conceive that we might fight as a coalition," the right-wing MP for Hitchin and Harpenden told the programme.

Torbay Lib Dem MP Adrian Sanders called for a change of direction from leader Nick Clegg to highlight the party's distinctive contribution to the coalition, and branded the party's tuition fees U-turn a "train crash" which could damage the party's prospects for a long time.

He wrote in his blog: "If lessons are not learnt from the higher education train crash, then the next four years are going to be very long indeed, with our prospects of advancement probably non-existent for a generation."

And he added: "The leadership, on the other hand, almost revels in having to take decisions against the grain of Liberal Democrat support and can't see the damage and hurt left in their wake."

The MP told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he supported the coalition and went on: "The reality is the leadership, in my view, needs to change direction, rather than we need a change of leadership.

"We have got a coalition programme for government that, broadly speaking, is supported by the bulk of the Liberal Democrat membership, but we seem to have a leadership that shies away from telling the public what we have achieved in coalition.

"We are not getting our message across as to the incredible difference we have made.

"We are falling down in getting across the difference we have made."