Coalition shows signs of strain as key figures diverge sharply on policy

Vince Cable’s efforts to curb high executive pay undermined by Tory director of strategy’s comments on maternity rights Startling divisions inside the coaltion have been exposed after Steve Hilton, David Cameron’s strategy guru, proposed the temporary abolition of all maternity rights while Vince Cable, the business secretary, was preparing to meet policy experts on salaries to prepare the ground for new controls on excessive executive pay. The degree to which senior figures in the coalition are pushing in entirely opposite ideological directions underlines the growing sense that the coalition is now struggling to retain a set of coherent ideas. Hilton has always been regarded as a source of originality as much as pragmatic Whitehall-ready policy, but his opposition to any form of employment protection for mothers will alarm centrists in the coalition. He has also suggested the abolition of all consumer rights as part of an initiative to inject life into Britain’s sluggish economy. Cable, responsible for growth policy, yesterday presented limited proposals to abolish outdated shopping legislation. Demands for ever-more urgent deregulation has grown inside the government in the face of evidence that the economy is not growing as fast as the prime minister hoped a year ago, At one point Hilton, a euro-sceptic, advocated Britain ignoring a directive on EU temporary and agency workers’ rights, even though the government had committed itself to implementing the directive. Hilton would always defend himself as willing to advance iconoclastic thinking, but some civil servants are now hitting back claiming he is a diversion from serious policy. Cable is to meet members of the independent High Pay Commisison, a body that is looking at mainly non-legislative ways of curbing undeserved high pay to

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