Rolling coverage of all the day's political developments as they happen
3.26pm: That didn't take long. Someone has sent me a link to David Cameron Pretending to be Common (although it's slightly different from the Miliband and Clegg sites - see 3.09pm - because, while the captions are satirical, the pictures are mostly fine).
3.09pm: Earlier I mentioned the Nick Clegg Looking Sad website. There's also one devoted to Awkward Ed Miliband Moments.
Does anyone know if there's one full of pictures of David Cameron looking a prat too?
2.52pm: Here are the main news lines from the Cameron/Clegg event.
? Cameron has signalled that he would like David Laws to return to government. He said that Laws was "a very talented individual who has a lot to offer public life" and that he (Cameron) would want to study the standards and privileges committee report "and take it from there." He added: "I do think he has a lot to offer public life and I hope he stays in public life." Clegg said that Laws was motivated by the desire "to protect his own privacy, not to gain a penny or a pound from the expenses system".
? Cameron and Clegg both insisted that the coalition would endure. This is what Cameron said:
We have different traditions and views and beliefs and we have robust discussions, even arguments in private, and then we come out with agreed policies that we think are good for the country ... If [people] could see what actually happens in private where both parties stand up for their views but we come to a good, collective decision, I think they'd see it is a strong coalition government and that's what I'm absolutely committed to delivering.
And this is how Clegg put it.
We never went into this because it was easy - you shouldn't go into government because it's easy - but because we genuinely believe that what we're doing together ? two parties coming together, yes retaining our differences, to clear up a lot of the problems we've inherited in the past that that is in the long-term interests of the country.
? Nick Clegg said that he would be judged on what the government achieved. "Polls go up and down, people's popularity goes up and down, parties' popularity goes up and down," he said. "At the end of the day, how will we be judged? We will be judged about whether we sorted out the mess we'd inherited and restored a sense of optimism, of prosperity, jobs, to this country and that's what I firmly believe we are on track to do." Cameron made a similar point about the government being judged by what it achieved, but he did not have to mention the adverse polls. Last week's elections showed his party doing pretty well.
2.15pm: The Cameron/Clegg press conference in the rose garden was a great moment of political theatre that provided one of the defining images of the coalition government. Today's event was rather different: drab, humdrum and rather underwhelming. In any relationship, I suppose, the sparkle starts to fade after the first 12 months. What came across, I suppose, was the determination that Cameron and Clegg both expressed to plough on. I'll post the quotes in full shortly, but the key point that they both made was, regardless of any problems, the government should be judged at the end of its term by what it has achieved. I was also struck by quite how downbeat Clegg looked, and particularly how pained he seemed when ITV's Lucy Manning asked the question about the Lib Dems now being seen as a joke. (See 1.48pm.) Whatever Simon Hoggart says (see 1.58pm), it's hard not to think his demeanour has something to do with his party being at only 8 points in the polls. Yesterday I discovered the Nick Clegg Looking Sad website. There may well be another picture going up on it soon.
1.58pm: The Cameron/Clegg event is over. I've just been speaking to my colleague Simon Hoggart, who was there and witnessed the whole thing (not just what made it onto BBC News). Simon says there was a choice moment before the Q&A started, when Clegg was explaining exactly what the government would be doing to help the young unemployed. The government wanted to help "people who have fallen through the cracks and been forgotten", Clegg said. For obvious reasons, this line appealed to the sketchwriters like Simon. I told Simon I thought Clegg looked particularly miserable, but Simon says he thinks we shouldn't read too much into this. Clegg always looks miserable, he tells me.
I'll post more in a moment.
1.54pm: Q: [For Clegg.] Cameron said he would not let the Lib Dems be a moderating influence. Where does that leave muscular liberalism?
Clegg says the two parties are different.
Cameron says he and Clegg agreed that they would not be a "lowest common denominator" government. At the end of this parliament, they will be judged on whether they produced "good results on the things that people care about".
1.48pm: Cameron is taking questions now from journalists.
Q: Why should some MPs who fiddle their expenses go to jail, while others can get the chance to rejoin government?
Cameron says David Laws has made a "very full apology". Having worked with Laws, he knows he's "a very talented individual who has a lot to offer public life."
Clegg says Laws was only concerned to protect his privacy. The taxpayers were not cheated of money. In the past some people fleeced the system. That was not Laws's motivation.
Q: Could Laws return to government?
Cameron says he will have to study the report. But the thinks Laws is a decent man. He has a lot to offer public life.
Clegg says David is "a close friend and a good colleague". Cameron makes it clear that the David that Clegg is referring to is Laws, not Cameron.
Q: A year ago you were in the warm, fuzzy atmosphere of Downing Street. (Clegg queries "fuzzy".) At the time there was a humorous reference to Cameron saying previously that his favourite joke was "Nick Clegg". But have the Lib Dems now become a joke?
Cameron says the reasons for forming the coalition still apply. There are big issues to tackle. They have a five-year programme.
People want to see that it's a coalition government. The two parties have different views. They have "robust" arguments in private.
Cameron says "we've obviously had to get used to each other's jokes".
Clegg says this period was always going to be tough. The coalition is still borrowing £400m a day. Whoever was in government would have to do difficult things.
Clegg says he went into government with his eye open. He did not think it would be easy.
As for polls, they go "up and down". People's popularity "goes up and down". But people will be judged by what they achieve.
1.41pm: David Cameron says there has to be a proper careers service in schools. Everyone in schools will be told what's available, he says.
Some apprenticeship schemes are 10 or 20 times over-subscribed. It should not be seen as a poor relation to university, he says. When he held a cabinet meeting at Rolls Royce, half the members of the board were ex-apprentices.
Cameron suggests that when people receive a rejection letter after applying for a job, it should say what other apprenticeship opportunities might be available.
Clegg interrupts at this point to say something about qualifications changing too often.
There's no hostility between the two leaders, but there's no affection on display between them either.
As I said, it's businesslike. A bit boring too, to be honest. But sensible, functional, and practical. Downing Street says there's "a lot more work to be done". (See 1.10pm.) Cameron and Clegg are showing what this looks like in action.
1.37pm: Back to the serious stuff. BBC News are now showing a live feed of the Cameron/Clegg event. They're holding a Q&A with business figures.
Someone is telling Cameron that the work experience programme will help businesses work together. "Business has to take the leading role here," he says.
Cameron and Clegg are standing together, with business figures and apprentices sitting around them. Clegg has his hands in his pockets. They are looking serious. And he's talking again about business.
Just in case you didn't get the message, they're being businesslike.
1.36pm: No, they're not the same thing. (See 1.32pm). This is handball and this is beach volleyball.
1.32pm: The Cameron/Clegg eventually now seems to be starting. BBC News and Sky aren't on the case yet, but Twitter reaches everywhere. ITV's Lucy Manning says they're at the Olympics handball centre. Cameron has just admitted he knows nothing about handball.
(Neither do I. Is it the same as beach volleyball?)
1.27pm: Nick Clegg has commented on the Lords defeat on elected police commissioners. Towards the end of his evidence to the political and constitutional reform committee, he said he was committed to overturning it.
It is a coalition agreement commitment and I take very seriously, even in cases which don't, as I say, flow from one side of the coalition, our collective duty to honour what we've said we were going to do in the coalition agreement. And that's why the government will seek to reverse that vote last night.
1.20pm: David Cameron and Nick Clegg will be launching a £60m programme creating apprenticeships and work placements. There are some more details on the BBC's website.
1.10pm: We're still waiting to see Cameron and Clegg take to the stage together.
In the meantime, Downing Street has published a list of the government's achievements so far. It says there's "a lot more work to be done".
In the four years ahead, the Coalition is more determined than ever to be a different kind of government: more transparent, more open and more willing to listen as it seeks to rebalance Britain's economy, repair Britain's society and rebuild trust and accountability in Britain's politics.
1.02pm: At the rose garden press conference the issue of what would happen when the two coalition parties had to campaign in an election came up. At the time there was a delayed election looming in Thirsk. Cameron joked about sharing a car to Thirsk with his new Lib Dem deputy. "We could get out on opposite sides," Clegg added. A year one, after a pounding at the hands of the Tory election machine (masquerading as No to AV), I expect Clegg's tone will be rather different.
12.56pm: My colleague Julian Glover has recorded a video for Comment is free with his own verdict on the coalition after its first year.
12.43pm: I've just read the transcript of the comments David Cameron and Nick Clegg made at the start of their rose garden press conference last year. The prize for foresight goes to Nick Clegg:
There will be bumps and scrapes along the way.
But the most interesting claims was Cameron's.
We are not just announcing a new government and new ministers; we are announcing a new politics. A new politics where the national interest is more important than the party interest, where cooperation wins out over confrontation, where compromise, where give and take, where reasonable, civilised, grown-up behaviour is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.
It didn't quite feel like this last Friday, but the coalition goes on and it's undoubtedly true that coalition government is not the same as one-party government. Cameron's vision hasn't entirely collapsed.
12.37pm: Here's the transcript of the opening remarks that Cameron and Clegg made at their press conference a year ago.
12.15pm: A year ago today David Cameron and Nick Clegg unveiled the coalition and its draft programme at a remarkable press conference in what's known as the Downing Street rose garden. (It's only called that by the press because the White House garden is called the rose garden, which is a bit pathetic really, but that's another story.) They stood alongside each other and seemed to get on so well that the sketchwriters wrote it up as a civil partnership. One colleague proclaimed on Twitter that Britain was now being run by two characters from a Richard Curtis film. If so, a year ago, it was Love, Actually.
A year later, it's Four Elections and a Funeral. Sadly Cameron and Clegg are not holding a re-run in Downing Street. But they are appearing together at an event intended to promote a youth employment initiative. Obviously there's going to be intense interest in the difference between then and now.
It's going to start at around about 1pm. I'll be watching on BBC News or Sky from the office, but my colleague Simon Hoggart is there to witness it all in person. I'll be covering it in detail, reporting on what the prime minister and his deputy have to say and looking at how relations have changed since last year's open-air love-in.
11.33am: As I said earlier, the key complaint against David Laws was that he was renting a room from his partner when Commons rules banned MPs from using their allowances to rent property from a relative or a partner. But it's a bit more complicated than that, and the report identifies several problems with his expenses claims. Here's a summary.
? Laws broke the rule saying that MPs should not use allowances to rent property from a partner. This rule was introduced in July 2006. Laws repaid £56,592, the full amount he claimed in second home allowance from July 2006 to July 2009.
Laws did not want to admit that his landlord was his partner because his homosexuality was a secret. John Lyon, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, and the committee have some sympathy with this. But they still think what he did was wrong.
This is what Lyon said about the matter.
I believe there was a conflict between [Mr Laws'] private interest in secrecy and the public interest in him being open and honest in relation to his expenses claims. I recognise and have very great sympathy with Mr Laws for the difficulty of the decision he had to make in resolving that conflict, because it affected all aspects of his life as he had presented it over many years. But it was, in my view, a decision which he had to make under the Code of Conduct and one which he should have straightaway resolved in the public interest, either by being open with the House authorities about the relationship with his landlord, or by making no claims at all against his accommodation allowance and accepting the ever-present risk that the relationship would anyway come to public attention, as, eventually, it did.
And this is what the committee said:
It is clear that Mr Laws recognized that there was potential conflict between the public interest and his private interest. By omitting to seek advice he made himself the sole judge of whether that conflict was properly resolved. It was inappropriate for him to be judge and jury in his own cause. As the Commissioner comments, it can never be acceptable to submit misleading documents to those charged with overseeing public finances. As this case shows, Mr Laws' desire for secrecy led him to act in a way which was not compatible with the standards expected of an MP.
? There was also a problem with Laws's claims before July 2006. Even though there was no ban on MPs renting from a partner at that stage, Laws submitted documents to the Commons fees office that "gave a false impression of his relationship with his landlord and of their shared use of the landlord's successive London properties."
? Laws claimed a higher rent for the rooms he rented in London from his partner than was justified under the terms of his lodging agreement or as a reflection of his true relationship with his landlord.
? He claimed £2,000 for building work on one of the properties that should have been covered by the rent.
? He claimed £2,249 for phone calls from his second home allowance when this was not allowed. He could have used his office expenses to pay for this, but there was not enough money in his office allowance account to pay for all these calls.
? He should not have used his second home allowance to pay for property in London anyway from April 2005 because by then London was his main home. But he could at this stage have used his second home allowance to fund accommodation in his Yeovil constituency.
11.29am: David Laws has repaid £56,592 in expenses, the report said. He repaid this sum - representing the amount he claimed from July 2006 to July 2009 - voluntarily, and not because he was asked to.
11.23am: The committee on standards in public life website is now working. The full report is here. There's also a second volume, which contains the report to the committee from the parliamentary commissioner for standards and all the evidence. That does not seem to be up yet, but I trust someone will sort it out soon.
11.19am: Here's the statement that David Laws has issued in response to today's report.
I accept the conclusions of the Inquiry and take full responsibility for the mistakes which I have made. I apologise to my constituents and to parliament. Each of us should be our own sternest critic, and I recognise that my attempts to keep my personal life private were in conflict with my duty as an MP to ensure that my claims were in every sense above reproach. I should have resolved this dilemma in the public interest and not in the interests of my privacy.
However, from the moment these matters became public, I have made clear that my motivation was to protect my privacy, rather than to benefit from the system of parliamentary expenses, and I am pleased that the Commissioner has upheld that view.
I have also, from the very beginning, made clear that I believed that my secrecy about my private life led me to make lower overall claims than would otherwise be the case, and this has been confirmed by the parliamentary commissioner and by the committee. The taxpayer gained, rather than lost out, from my desire for secrecy, though I fully accept that this is not an adequate reason for breaking the rules.
This last year has been a difficult one, and I am grateful to family, friends, constituents and colleagues for their support and understanding.
11.15am: The key complaint against David Laws was that he was renting a room from his partner when Commons rules banned MPs from using their allowances to rent property from a relative or a partner. This is how Laws explained the matter in a letter to the parliamentary commissioner for standards.
The issue is that because I wanted to keep my sexuality secret, I was having a close relationship with someone who I was denying publicly to be a "partner" with. We made no claims as partners (eg, for travel etc), and our financial arrangements and assets were separate. Essentially we presented ourselves as being friends, not partners.
11.07am: Here are the main points from conclusions in the the standards and privileges committee's report.
? David Laws "was guilty of a series of serious breaches of the rules over a considerable time".
? He should be suspended from the Commons for seven days, beginning on 7 June, and he should apologise to the Commons by way of personal statement.
? The claims submitted to Laws for renting a room in his partner's flat were "excessive in comparision to market rent". The excessive claims have been estimated at being worth £4,470. Laws also wrongly claimed £2,248 for phone calls, by claiming them against the second home allowance rather that against office expenses. But the report does not recommend any repayments, because Laws has already repaid £6,700 which he claimed for food.
? The report notes that Laws resigned from cabinet and that since then his behaviour has been "exemplary". He has cooperated in full with the investigation.
11.02am: The report is supposed to be on the standards and privileges committee's website, but the link isn't working at the moment.
11.01am: The leaks are correct. The report does say that David Laws should be suspended for a week.
10.51am: David Laws, the Lib Dem former chief secretary to the Treasury, will be making a personal statement in the Commons this afternoon, we've been told. The Commons standard and privileges committee report into his case is being published at 11am and it is expected to say that he should be suspended for seven days and that he should apologise for breaking the rules relating to his expenses. His statement will come at around 1pm, the first opportunity available.
Standards and privileges committee reports normally don't leak in advance, but there are have been some specific reports about what will appear in this one. Iain Dale has written a furious blog suggesting that someone on the committee has been trying to damage Laws.
10.46am: Stephen Williams, a Lib Dem, asks Clegg if he thinks there is an answer to the West Lothian question.
Clegg says he has not come across a "simple or straightforward answer".
Q: What are you going to do about party funding?
Clegg says he will wait until the committee on standards in public life produces its report on this. It's due in the summer.
I'm bowing out now. We haven't learnt much, I'm afraid, although if you're interested in the commission on the West Lothian question, you now know that you might have to wait until the end of the year before it gets launched.
I'll be focusing on David Laws shortly.
10.33am: Eleanor Laing, a Conservative, is asking the questions now. She asks if the joint committee that will be set up to consider the draft bill on Lords reform will be elected.
Nick Clegg says it is up for the Commons and the Lords to decide how they set up this committee.
Mark Harper says he wants the joint committee to have plenty of time to consider the draft legislation.
Q: Alex Salmond wants to hold a referendum on Scottish independence. But would you agree that that affects everyone else in the UK?
Clegg says the consequences of a referendum would, of course, affect everyone else.
Q: Constitutional reform is not a devolved matter. Shouldn't Westminster take the initiative, and organise a referendum in Scotland?
Clegg says if any nation in the UK wants to to express an opinion about their future, that's there prerogative. Any referendum would affect England. But he does not think it would therefore be right for Westminster to organise one first. It should not be like "the gunfight at the OK Corral", with each side threatening the other with a referendum.
Q: But wouldn't it help for Westminster to organise a referendum?
Clegg says the government has not taken a view on this. But the government is keen to work with Alex Salmond. Personally, he thinks trying to bounce Scotland into a referendum could give the impression that Westminster is trying to push the Scots "into a corner".
Q: Do people outside Scotland have a right to be consulted?
Clegg says this will be a subject of debate for the UK as a whole. He feels passionately that the nations in the UK are stronger together.
Q: Do you accept that this is not just a matter for Scotland, and that it is a matter that should be considered by the UK parliament?
Clegg says it is not the government's role to constrain what parliament can consider. This is a matter for national debate. But that does not therefore mean that Westminster should trigger a nationwide referendum.
Laing says she was not suggesting that. "We've had more than enough of nationwide referendums for the moment," she says. Clegg says he agrees.
10.25am: Christopher Chope says the commission on the West Lothian question was supposed to be set up before the end of last year. Will it now come next month, immediately after the government's Lords reform plans have been published?
Clegg says it will be set up before the end of this year.
Q: Are you stalling because you don't want the commission to come up with conclusions that can be made law before the election?
Clegg says he is trying to proceed in a "deliberate fashion". It is not a straightforward issue.
10.18am: Andrew Turner says Lord Steel suggested this week that the Lib Dems should not pursue constitutional issues of little interest to the voters.
Mark Harper says he won't comment on AV. But the issue of whether the Lords should be elected is clearly an important one, he says.
Nick Clegg says that things that are important are not necessarily the same as those that resonate with the electorate. The rules of the World Trading Organisation are important. But no one has ever raised them with him on the doorstep, he says.
Lords reform is not a preoccupation for one party, he says. It is something Britain as a community has been grappling with for decades. "I don't think as a government we should apologise [for] ... proceeding with things that are important," Clegg says.
Q: Do you think Steel is wrong?
Clegg says all politicians want to address the concerns that matter to people.
Q: This worries the chattering classes. But it doesn't affect ordinary people, does it?
Clegg says all three parties committed themselves to Lords reform at the election. It might not be the most important issue facing voters. But that doesn't mean the government should "duck" it.
10.13am: Andrew Turner asks when the government will set up a commission to investigate the West Lothian question, as it has promised to do.
Clegg said the government decided to set out its plans for Lords reform first, because these will have a bearing on the West Lothian question.
Q: Are you saying that one version of Lords reform would mean that you would not have to address the West Lothian question?
No, says Clegg. It's just that the two issues overlap. "This is a pragmatic issue of chronology and interaction between those two questions," he says.
Mark Harper says that if the Lords is wholly or largely elected, that will raise the same questions about Scotland's representation as those thrown up by the West Lothian question.
10.09am: Andrew Turner, a Conservative, is asking questions now.
Q: How many hours do you spend on constituency work? On ministerial work? And in cabinet?
Clegg says it varies enormously. He cannot give a precise answer. Some weeks he finds himself "immersed" in constitutional reform. Some weeks he focuses on his duties as deputy prime minister. "It comes and goes really," he says.
Q: How much time do you spend on party work?
Clegg says it is an intriguing question, but not one he can answer. "I don't keep a timesheet in that sense."
Mark Harper, the Conservative constitutional reform minister, is giving evidence alongside Clegg. He says his workload varies too.
10.04am: Graham Allen, the chairman, asks if the result of the referendum has dealt a blow to the case for reform.
Clegg says the need for constitutional reform remains. He says he is not "undimmed or discouraged" about the need to get on with reform.
Q: It has been said that the arguments weren't presented well during the campaign. Are there lessons to be learnt about how the case for constitutional reform can be made? Is there a case for parliament having a more serious role?
Clegg says he agrees with Allen's characterisation of the campaign as one that was "disfigured" by party politics. It reinforced his view that, where politicians can develop ideas together, that should be encourged. As chair of the group looking at Lords reform, he tried to get people to move forward on a consensual basis.
10.01am: Nick Clegg has just started giving evidence now. He is talking about the AV referendum result. He says that, as far as the actual result is concerned, "the less said, the better". But it won't affect other aspects of the government's reform programme.
9.56am: Nick Clegg will be giving evidence to the Commons political and constitutional reform committee shortly. You can watch it here on the parliamentary website. I'll be covering it in detail until about 11am, when I will focus instead on the David Laws report.
9.31am: Lady Hamwee, one of the Lib Dem peers who abstained last night instead of voting with the government over elected police commissioners, told the Today programme that the vote was not a deliberate display of "muscular liberalism". It just reflected the strength of feeling on the matter, she said.
She also insisted that the vote against the government was consistent with what is set out in the coalition agreement.
It was not planned to be muscular or assertive but it was pretty kind of truthful. We are not so far from the Conservatives. Both parties want more democracy in the governance of policing.
But what the coalition agreement said was that the new model should be subject to "strict" checks and balances. There was certainly no confidence that what is in the bill at present amounts to that. I hope what has happened is going to allow a rethink which will reflect better the coalition agreement.
9.28am: For the record, here are the latest YouGov GB polling figures.
Labour: 42% (up 12 points since the general election)
Conservatives: 36% (down 1)
Lib Dems: 8% (down 16)
Labour lead: 6 points
Government approval: -23
9.04am: Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, was on the Today programme this morning just before 8am. As usual, PoliticsHome was monitoring. Duncan Smith did not have much to say about the youth employment initiative coming later today, but he did have some interesting things to say about welfare in general. Here are the main points.
? Duncan Smith strongly attacked Labour's record on jobs and wage equality. "Labour, for all the money that they threw at these things, left us with a record level of youth unemployment and wage inequality that is at record levels, the worst in my lifetime," he said.
? He claimed Labour's Future Jobs Fund was ineffective. "The Future Jobs Fund was six times more expensive than anything else that they were doing and actually created jobs only in the public sector, which, once the money ended, those poor people, young people, crashed out of work straight away and then start carrying a wage scar," he said. I didn't know the phrase "wage scar", but I've just been consulting Professor Google. It means the long-term impact of unemployment, caused by the fact that young people who are unemployed tend to lose out later in life when they do get into work because their average earnings are lower than they otherwise would have been.
? He said nearly 50,000 firms had offered to create work experience places for young people. "What we're trying to do is give young people a chance to get some experience of the working world in the private sector, for the most part, and then see with the private sector how we develop that," he said. "That's the key area of developing private sector jobs."
? He defended the decision to scrap the education maintenance allowance. I spent many, many months talking to young kids who are at school and large numbers of those I talked to would readily admit that the maintenance allowance wasn't a vital and critical area for them, but for poorer children it was," he said.
8.50am: William Hague, the foreign secretary, has put out a statement about the meeting he and David Cameron are having today with Mustafa Abdul Jalil, who, as chair of the Libyan National Transitional Council is leader of the Libyan rebels.
I am very pleased to welcome Mr Abdul Jalil to the UK. The NTC is a legitimate representative of the Libyan people. The situation in Libya remains of very serious concern, and this visit provides a welcome opportunity to discuss with Mr Abdul Jalil the latest situation on the ground and to look at how the UK and international community can continue to support the Libyan people.
We will discuss a range of issues, including the establishment of a permanent NTC office in London and the provision of further non-lethal equipment and support to the NTC.
We will explore in more detail the measures agreed at last week's Contact Group meeting in Rome, including the operation of a Transitional Financial Mechanism, which was driven by the UK. The Transitional Financial Mechanism comes into operation today and will allow the NTC to provide essential services to the people of Libya.
We will also share views on the situation in Western Libya, which remains deeply troubling. Colonel Gaddafi continues to brutalise his own people. The British government urges him to stand down immediately and initiate a real ceasefire, so that the legitimate needs of Libya's people can be met.
Abdul Jalil is holding a press conference at 3pm.
8.34am: When Nick Clegg promised "muscular liberalism" yesterday, we didn't think that was going to involve voting down flagship proposals in the coalition agreement. But the defeat in the Lords over elected police commissioners suggests relations in the coalition really have changed. It wasn't an official rebellion - technically, only 13 Lib Dem peers rebelled - but if you look at the Lords analysis of the division list you will see that only 36 of the 92 Lib Dems in the Lords voted with the government, suggesting that Clegg didn't try very hard to get his troops out. Clegg is sharing a platform with David Cameron later today, and with luck they will have something to say about this.
Otherwise, it's a reasonably busy day. Here's a full list of what's coming up.
9am: David Cameron meets Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the chair of the Libyan National Transitional Council, at Number 10. It's the first time the two men have met.
9.30am: The Department for Work and Pensions releases its annual poverty statistics.
10am: Nick Clegg gives evidence to the Commons political and constitutional reform committee. He's expected to be asked about Lords reform, the alternative vote referendum and the fixed-term parliaments bill.
11am: The Commons standards and privileges committee publishes its report about David Laws. It is expected to recommend that Laws should be suspended from the Commons for seven days.
12.15pm: Michael Gove, the education secretary, announces the government's response to the Wolf review on vocational qualifications in a statement to the Commons.
12.30pm: Cameron and Clegg share a platform at an event to promote a government initiative on youth employment.
Around 3pm: MPs will debate on a backbench motion tabled by the Tory MP Adam Afriyie calling for a shake-up of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
As usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm and an afternoon one at about 4pm.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/may/12/politics-live-blog
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