Coalition rift over intern allocations

DAVID Cameron yesterday appeared to undermine his Liberal Democrat partners when he defended the allocation of internship placements to the children of friends and colleagues.

The Prime Minister said he was "very relaxed" about awarding work experience positions to personal acquaintances and had offered one himself to a neighbour.

Earlier this month, Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister Clegg criticised the monopolisation of valuable internships by the children of the well- connected.

He urged companies to appoint interns in a more transparent and meritocratic way so that youngsters from less advantaged backgrounds had the same opportunities to get into competitive careers.

Clegg faced accusations of hypocrisy, however, when he was forced to admit that he had himself benefited from the connections of his banker father in obtaining an internship.

In an interview, Cameron said his deputy was "trying to make a fair point".

But he said he too had been helped out by family connections with what he called a "definite leg-up internship" at his father's stockbrokers.

The Prime Minister said he would go on offering work experience based on "all sorts of contacts".

"I've got my neighbour coming in for an internship," he said.

"In the modern world, of course you're always going to have internships and interns - people who come and help in your office who come through all sorts of contacts, friendly, political, whatever.

"I do that and I'll go on doing that. I feel very relaxed about it."

Cameron's willingness to disagree publicly with one of Clegg's most high profile policies will doubtless anger Lib Dems who are already smarting from the Prime Minister's attacks on the Alternative Vote system that they favour.

Clegg has argued that the system in which the "sharp elbowed" and "well connected" were the only ones with access to the top internships. He said professional life should be "about what you know, now who you know."