Leading article: Full marks to the Lib Dems in the Lords

Liberal Democrat peers are proving a feisty lot. While their colleagues in Government keep struggles with Conservative bedfellows largely behind closed doors, the yellow benches of the House of Lords are a hotbed of rebellion.

This week, it was welfare reform. Three defeats in a single sitting left the Tory Work and Pensions Secretary's flagship Welfare Bill in tatters, with no little help from his Liberal Democrat partners. When it came to the vote on benefits for cancer patients, for example, more than half of them refused to vote with the Government. Neither is the recalcitrance limited to welfare. It was Liberal Democrat peers – most notably the redoubtable Shirley Williams – who led the parliamentary fight against NHS reforms.

Nick Clegg may be struggling to differentiate the Liberal Democrats from a Tory-dominated Coalition agenda. His party's peers, it seems, have a simpler brief. All power to their elbows.