Finally it's happened. After two years, the mouse has finally roared. That pesky minority which refuses to acknowledge that they are an irrelevant adjunct to the government, has come out and opposed the Coalition Agreement.

Coalition government is intrinsically difficult, with key party priorities liable to founder on the need to achieve agreement in detail. All the more reason, one might think, for the Government to forge ahead in areas where the parties entirely agree. One such area is a reduction in experiments on animals.

Let us traverse across time and return to those fateful days in May 2010. Like a spectre haunting the past, we recall the infamous 'rose garden love-in' and the the level of expectations the coalition was building. Health, economic, education, transport, social, political, constitutional and banking reform was all promised; this would be the most radical government ever witnessed in Britain, it would dwarf the statue of the reforming administrations of the 19th Century.

Privatisation is often blamed for the shortcomings of Britain's railways. This is unfair. Genuine privatisation never happened. Nominal ownership may have been transferred to the private sector, but the government remains firmly in control.

Arrogance, incompetence and now infighting; this is what has defined the Conservative-led government.

If Labour act now voters might believe they actually mean it. With the assertion of strong principle-backed policies - something a limping coalition will find it awkward to counter - Labour could create a bond with the electorate, a rallying call to prevent the opposition sliding into ignominy as one of the great political chickens of the era.

How could a 10 or 11-year-old girl be expected to tell the police that she went shoplifting as a cry for help or act of desperation to get food because she is living rough and last night she was raped by eight men? When we are dealing with child sexual abuse it is never, never up to the child to deal with it and quite wrong that they could face punishment if they fail to reveal.

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Today the contest is finely poised, because millions of voters are impressed with neither main party. Both Tories and Labour are caught together in a vortex of public condemnation. If one of them can escape the swirl and regain its credibility, it will be well placed for 2015.

We know that there is a gap into which a minimum of 200million women fall because their needs for contraception are unmet. Getting condoms, pills and other supplies onto the ground is one essential part of what needs to be done to deal with this. But it is only one side of the coin. If women are to be able to make use of these then we need to also tackle the flip side of the coin - the gender inequality and unequal power relations between men and women which mean that women and girls often cannot decide when or whether they have sex, including whether contraception is used.

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