It occurs to me that while there’s been this lovely – and very welcome – support for Civil Liberties from The Coalition, there’s something we absolutely don’t know about yet.

Let’s face it, the images coming from Cameron and Clegg together are beautiful. They’re funny, relaxed and surprisingly open and honest. They benefit from the virtue of being squeaky clean and shiny, brand new.

But there’s another area of policy where many Tories and Lib Dems agree with each other (and disagree with Internet Libertarians like me), and that’s on State Puritanism. You know the kind of thing - punitive sin taxs on tobacco and alcohol and mutterings about price fixing and ‘nudging’. Crucially, there’s Drug Prohibition too.

Look at how the Lib Dem’s amnesty policy was dropped – the rationale for the Amnesty was that it’s impossible to find them (by the very nature of illegal immigrants existing below the State’s radar) and the only people who really benefit are the criminal gangs who exploit them. The argument against, ‘moral hazard’ or encouraging people to sneak into Britain in the hope of another Amnesty 10 years from now is the same logic that keeps Drug Prohibition in place – legalisation will encourage use and development of recreational drugs, and this would be worse (apparently) than allowing the continued engorgement of the pockets of the black market drugs industry.

The Lib Dems have no real power, or motivation, or desire – to do anything about this. While a battle against Labour’s worst authoritarian instincts appears to have been won, we can’t really be so certain the battle against mainstream politics’ desire to nanny us has seen any progress at all.

Yet this Coalition is going to enjoy a honeymoon period no matter what. To grumble now appears churlish and wilfully difficult… but perhaps, as bloggers, that’s what we’re for.

Watch this space…