By Tim Montgomerie
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Just a quick blog to note this morning's Mail front page.
Nick Clegg is openly briefing that he's determined to block Ken Clarke's "secret courts" plan:
"The Deputy Prime Minister told Mr Cameron and other members of the highly secretive National Security Council that without major changes, the Liberal Democrats will not back legislation allowing more court hearings and inquests to be held behind closed doors."
Some civil libertarian Conservatives will welcome Nick Clegg's intervention. Some will worry that this is another example of the Government u-turning on a policy. I want to make one different point. Lib Dem briefing against the Conservatives is becoming more and more brazen. Collective responsibility it is not. Worse we are going into that period in the electoral cycle when the Lib Dems will be looking for more differentiation than normal. Remember last year when – during the countdown to the AV referendum – all Coalition etiquette was thrown out of the window? There's no referendum this time but still a lot of LibDem / Conservative councillor scraps. Just as the full moon brings out the worst in wolves, local elections bring out the worst in the LibDems. Expect a lot of howling in the next month.