Senior allies of Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and Lib Dem leader, are remarkably candid about the three-part process that led up to their mauling of an NHS reform bill (a bill that Lib Dem MPs had earlier supported on its first trundle through Parliament).

ECONOMIST: Bagehot

If the coalition works, voters may warm to the idea of power-sharing, and to the proportional voting systems that inevitably give rise to it. (A referendum on the alternative-vote electoral model, which the Lib Dems prefer over Westminster's first-past-the-post system, is part of the deal.) And the Lib Dems got all this despite flopping at the polls.

ECONOMIST: The new coalition government

In fact, the idea of Mr Clegg as a map re-drawer is part of what makes some Lib Dems sceptical about him.

ECONOMIST: Bagehot

However Mr Black welcomed an announcement on a mortgage guarantee scheme for first-time buyers, agreed with the Lib Dems as part of budget negotiations.

BBC: Welsh government ?3.5bn spending plans repackaging row

The tax-cutting part is designed to fend off the Tory threat to Lib Dem seats in the south of England, and to offer more help for the poor - the party's line of attack against Labour in the north.

BBC: Challenge for Clegg despite tax victory

The Lib Dem-controlled authority said the posts being cut are made up of part-time, vacant and job-share positions.

BBC: Portsmouth City Council cuts put 130 jobs at risk

Labour and the Lib Dems both promised fixed-term parliaments in their election manifestos and the Tories, as part of the agreement with their new partners, have now come into line.

ECONOMIST: More unites the Tories and Lib Dems than divides them