One radio pundit over the weekend commented that if you were a Sunday Telegraph reading Tory then last weekend’s edition was hardly worth getting out of bed for, due to the sheer quantity of bad publicity being experienced by the coalition government, and more specifically by the Conservative leadership. With criticism of the government’s planning laws, a hefty support of Nadine Dorries’ abortion amendment and talk of further aggravation between the coalition partners, one might be forgiven for thinking that David Cameron’s administration is going through something of an existential crisis. Worryingly for Ed Miliband, however, one only has to dig a little deeper to realize this is far from the truth.

Despite a persistently sluggish level of economic growth denting the government’s fiscal credibility, a precarious diplomatic situation in Libya (not to mention Syria) and the political strain of both the muddled reaction to the recent riots and the new pressure of the Lib Dems’ differentiation strategy, the government remains steadfastly united on the vast majority of issues and is even making an unexpected surge in the polls. One such survey at the weekend put the Tories just two points behind Labour, a statistic that must surely turn up the heat yet again on Ed Miliband’s tenure as leader.

I have always been of the school of thought that believes the coalition will last the distance until 2015, and similarly I have always maintained that 2011 will prove the most politically turbulent year of the parliament. Alongside May’s divisive local election and referendum results and the increased scrutiny over George Osborne’s growth plans, the year has also thrown up a multitude of unexpected dilemmas for the government to deal with. Be it the riots, the hacking scandal or divisions over the NHS, wealth taxes and free schools, the coalition has had a tricky year.

Yet remarkably it has emerged relatively unscathed. True, Cameron has developed as a less idealistic and consensual style of leader (although some may argue that is a good thing) and the component partners of the coalition have drifted further apart on key issues (similarly, not entirely negative) but they remain joined at the hip on the key issue of deficit reduction, radical on portfolios such as welfare and education and increasingly appear resilient (or at least, the Tories do) to electoral decline as their polling figures refuse to fall any lower than a highly respectable 35%. So if this really is Cameron’s lowest ebb then he’s got nothing to worry about.