Paper Monitor
09:50 UK time, Monday, 20 September 2010
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
As Nick Clegg opened the morning newspapers at the Lib Dem conference in Liverpool, he would have been offered a stark visualisation of the perils of a centre party in entering government.
On the one hand, the Independent, which endorsed the yellow ticket at the last election, has a front page which contrasts Mr Clegg "signing up to a Tory-led programme of savage cuts to public services" with his host city's "most deprived areas, where the human cost of those cuts is shockingly clear". Inside, the paper quotes Lib Dem activists expressing varying degrees of unease about the coalition.
On the other, the Daily Mail takes one look at the party's plans to crack down on tax avoidance - a move designed to reassure its erstwhile centre-left supporters - and thunders its revulsion under the headline "CLEGG TAX WAR ON BETTER-OFF".
Who would be a Lib Dem in these troubled times? Yes, if you're an MP there's a good chance of getting a nice ministerial car.
And when guidance comes from broadly sympathetic columnists, it is, at best, elliptical.
For evidence, turn to Jackie Ashley in the Guardian. "The Liberal Democrat gamble could pay off", she offers, helpfully. "It probably won't." Thanks, Jackie.
Nonetheless, Mr Clegg will doubtless be heartened by support from an unlikely source.
The Sun may not, traditionally, be an ally of the Lib Dems when it comes to the party's long-held enthusiams for social liberalism, electoral reform and the sartorial twinning of beards with sandals.
But the paper's leader gushes in support of Nick Clegg for showing "leadership by calmly explaining the truth".
Columnist and former political editor Trevor Kavanagh - who may be bearded, but has never exactly been noted as a disciple of Beveridge and Keynes - praises the party for deciding to "take tough decisions instead of sniping from the sidelines". He adds:
To his credit, the Deputy PM has rounded on critics who accuse him of "selling out" and blamed them for risking our children's and our grandchildren's future. Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander has emerged as the unlikely champion of realistic spending cuts.
Praise indeed. It seems this government is producing more and more unforeseen coalitions.
The 
