Credit where it’s due

One of the worries of Tory modernisers about the coalition back in May last year was that the Tories would end up being seen as being responsible for all the tough but necessary stuff, eg deficit reduction, while the Lib Dems would claim the cuddly stuff, for example the pupil premium — a policy that was in both the Tory and Lib Dem manifestos.
 
David Willetts in a piece in the Telegraph today, taken from a speech he’s giving tonight, makes this point anew in the context of the new, frostier coalition relations:

“This agenda is shared, so it would be a mistake to get into a game of identifying Liberal measures and Tory ones in a perpetual trade-off. That is bad for government as it invites ministers to distance themselves from specific decisions. And, incidentally, it enables people to caricature Conservatives as not believing in social progress just when David Cameron has got people to shed this misapprehension about us.”