So, as the next election date hoves into view the pressure to have an electoral pact would be immense – especially in the face of a resurgent Labour Party. Herein lies the danger of a new centre right force.

How are we going to react when different policy pressures arise? For example, if Labour managed to get its act together, a big “if” I know, and they put an amendment to the voting reform bill designed to introduce AV+ on to a referendum question rather than AV, how will the Liberal Democrats vote? student tuition fees?

The argument that the individual components of the coalition will have the freedom to vote differently won’t wash in the long term. A government is a government -with cabinet responsibility for the whole programme.

Finally, I full accept that maybe some long held political assumptions should be re-assessed but I hold to one clear principle – there are conservative forces and progressive forces in society which are in conflict. When push comes to shove on a range of major issues where will the Lib Dems stand?

Equally, it is hard to fathom where you are coming from regarding ideas about some kind of electoral pact. Did the Lib Dems and Labour form a pact in Scotland after being in coalition after eight years? What are the historical or international precedents for that claim?

Like this particular coalition or not, the simple fact is that coalition politics is the norm not the exception worldwide, and it does not automatically lead to permanent alliances. I am very alive indeed to the risk that this coalition may be a political failure, but the certainty you have placed on such a doomsday scenario is badly misplaced. Worse, if too many people on the left agree with you, they risk it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On the wider issue of giving the right of your party some stick and standing up for social liberalism, I am happy to stand corrected that you have been doing this. Keep up the good work!

Tim Horton’s paper on the Lib Dem’s tax policy was little more than a partisan attack. From the cover onwards, the bulk of it was focused on making silly smears such as suggesting that because Paul Staines agrees with it, raising personal allowance is a policy that only rightwing libertarians could possibly agree with. It wasn’t a sincere attempt at criticism, just a pre-election bit of propaganda.

While Tim was scoring cheap points, the SLF were publicly criticising Nick Clegg’s suggestion that the party should include a commitment in its manifesto to only tackle the deficit via cuts in spending. I think most people would laugh at suggestions that people like Evan Harris – and myself – have been shy over the years in criticising the party when we felt it was warranted.

One thing that surprised me about the Horton analysis is that it didn’t even suggest the most obvious way to make the LD policy more redistributive, which is to lower the threshold for the higher rate of income tax by the same amount personal allowance is raised. This would have meant that noone earning more than £37k would have got the tax rise while making it more affordable and retaining the many positive aspects of the policy. Yet by taking a dogmatic stance, insisting that anyone opposed to high income taxes is a dangerous libertarian (something which only amuses a Georgist such as myself), you simply shut yourself out of the debate. I hope that can be rectified over the next few weeks and the Fabians will adopt a less dogmatic and partisan stance in future.

It is fair to say that we haven’t been especially critical over the past few weeks, although we have made our key concerns about the coalition agreement very clear. Either way, while we are not going to declare war on the coalition, expect a more critical tone as Parliament gets down to specifics.

On one point I will completely concede to you: the party’s position on the Child Trust Fund was misguided and we should not have axed it. While it is not as major a policy as the Fabians seem to think it is, and a perfect example of why half-measures fail to inspire the public (the only parent I know who supported the policy is a very well heeled Tory voter), you are right that it was a step in the right direction in terms of asset-based welfare and we should not have built on it instead of burying it.

I was wrong and you were right.

That said…

We Labour social liberals are pretty outspoken when it comes to criticising our own party, e.g. my own posts at Next Left on civil liberties themes. What I see much less of – though perhaps I have just missed it – is a similar degree of self-criticism by social liberal Lib Dems. For example, when the Fabians published a very good criticism of the Lib Dem income tax policy, the response from Lib Dems, including yourself, was extremely defensive. If you want to make common cuase with Labour’s social liberasl, as I hope you will, then I think you need to be more willing to give your own party – and the Coalition government – some stick.