The first few months of the Coalition government's term of office proceeded more smoothly than many might have anticipated. Although there were some (relatively) public disagreements around issues such as tuition fees for higher education and the cap on non-EU immigration, in most respects the partners were likely to have been relatively content with the operation of the Coalition.

However, there were a number of reasons to suspect that this initial period would not be typical. These included the fact that, despite the ‘emergency budget’ of June 2010 and the Spending Review in October that year, the real scale and impact of cuts in public expenditure and the full implications for jobs and public services would be likely to take several months to become clear. So, for example, while by the end of 2010 it was clear that significant job losses were taking place in local authorities, the impact of these on frontline services was not yet apparent. In political terms as well, with the parliamentary recess over the summer and Labour's leadership election at the same time, there was less scope for high-profile analysis and criticism of the Coalition's approach than was likely to follow, and the leaders of both of the Coalition parties were able to head into the summer and the party conference season in the autumn of 2010 in the knowledge that they had successfully returned their parties to power. At the same time, it must have been apparent to all that tough challenges were in prospect, not least in implementing the Coalition's social policies in combination with major reductions in public expenditure.

The remainder of this chapter draws upon the contributions to this book to provide an initial assessment of the state of social policy under the Coalition government.

The impact of the Liberal Democrats

Although the focus throughout this book has been on the Conservative Party, the creation of a Coalition government for the United Kingdom for the first time since the Second World War makes it appropriate to consider the nature and extent of the influence of the Liberal Democrats on their coalition partners.