Senior Liberal Democrats in secret talks with Labour The fact that the talks are becoming public will place further strain on the coalition government and will be seized on by Tory MPs unhappy with what they see as Mr Cameron abandoning traditional Tory policies while waving through Lib Dem-friendly moves such as legalising same-sex marriage. The news infuriate Mr Clegg as well as other "Tory-friendly" Lib Dems in the coalition, who include Jeremy Browne, the Foreign Office ministers tipped for promotion into the cabinet. A key Labour go-between with the Lib Dems is Lord Adonis, the former transport secretary and Downing Street adviser under Tony Blair, who recently re-entered frontline politics as an adviser to the Labour leader on industrial strategy. The peer has kept up links with the Lib Dems dating back from his past as a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which formed an alliance with the Liberals in the 1980s. A Labour source said: "Lib Dems are waking up to the fact that Nick Clegg has led them to the edge of the abyss interms of the next election. They could be looking a dramatic reduction in the number of their MPs. These talks are designed to find common ground so that, if the next election result is inconclusive once again, we could enter a progressive coalition with them. We do not want to attack the Lib Dems as such. We want their votes. We need to concentrate our fire on Nick Clegg and a few others. Last week Mr Cable annoyed Mr Clegg's inner circle by publicly casting doubt on the coalition lasting a full term. Many Lib Dems want the party to pull its ministers out of the government some months before polling day, expected to be in May 2015, leaving the Tories to run a minority administration. Such a move, it is argued, would allow both coalition partners some "breathing space" to establish a different set of policies for their respective manifestos. Mr Cable said last week: "Everybody involved knows that before the next general election, the two parties will have to establish their own separate platforms and identity. But how that disengagement takes place, over what time period, is very much an issue for the future. The talks are playing a key role as Labour refines its "attack strategy" under a three-person team: Harriet Harman, the party's deputy leader, Tom Watson, its deputy chairman, and Michael Dugher, the shadow Cabinet Office minister. The Labour source said: "You will notice we are holding fire on Vince [Cable] and a few others on the left of the the Lib Dems."