During the rebellion by Tory MPs on the European Union bill last week, Lib Dem ministers sat eating a canteen supper while they waited for the vote. If this rebellion didn't remind Tory ministers why they should be glad to be in coalition with the Lib Dems, they joked, nothing would.

But the jocular mood burst as they spotted their deputy leader, Simon Hughes, drawn into conversation with Ed Miliband at the cafe tills.

"Come on Simon, move along," one urged. Hughes and Miliband talked on, Miliband regularly touching his shoulder, and the diners' chat dried up.

That weekend, Hughes – appointed by David Cameron and Nick Clegg as an advocate for access to higher education – was at it again, telling a conference of Fabian activists he was working with Labour's shadow education secretary, Andy Burnham, to use a parliamentary motion to wring concessions from the government on the Educational Maintenance Allowance.

When Miliband mentioned these talks on TV the next day, a squall broke in No 10 as staff contemplated another Lib Dem rebellion. But education secretary Michael Gove's office gauged Hughes was overstating.

Both they, and the Clegg people harried by No 10, were irritated. "It is Simon's job to advise the government on higher education," one Lib Dem aide said. "Not to go around negotiating with Andy Burnham on how to defeat the government." Tories debated. Was he naive? Many Lib Dems brag they know what Hughes thinks before he does. Or mendacious? Anyone who knows him knows that isn't it either.

Hughes's job is difficult, and away from extinguishing the fires he starts, some senior Lib Dems admit he is not 100% unhelpful. Hughes talks to everyone (he has high-level access to government officials), but may calculate that public chats with Miliband that could end up helping Clegg will maximise Lib Dem leverage. Tory ministerial teams increasingly grumble that the deputy prime minister makes an agreement when in the room, but rings up later to say X Lib Dem won't wear it.

But Lib Dems talking to Labour is a conversation both sides know must start. They know that a lack of friendship among the 40-somethings who dominated the last coalition talks needs addressing for any future coalitions.

There are links: the chiefs of staff for the two leaders – Jonny Oates for Clegg and Lucy Powell for Miliband – are said to have worked to build up a rapport since Ed Miliband became leader; Powell knows Danny Alexander from her days in the Britain in Europe campaign. Recently, one Clegg adviser secured a job with Miliband for a friend. Another says: "It would be odd if the deputy prime minister and the leader of the opposition didn't speak." But John Prescott and David Cameron, for instance, never did.

As Labour lunges for Lib Dems, some swerve away. David Laws this week attacked Miliband, declaring: "Ed is getting all the big economic decisions wrong." Laws thinks no one knows Miliband but they know Gordon Brown, so "son of Brown" is the best way to wound. Miliband and Laws have history – one that makes Laws suspicious. In opposition, Brown made mischief by asking Tory ministers parliamentary questions to force the Treasury to reveal how regressive their budgets were. When Laws – then the Lib Dem director of policy – decided to continue this practice once Labour went into government, his requests went unanswered. Eventually a much younger Miliband rang up to politely explain why they wouldn't respond, blocking the once unblockable.

The two tendencies around Clegg – Hughes circling into Labour's orbit, Laws circling away – could be healthy for Clegg when in harmony. Squint, and you might think the Lib Dems were maintaining the equal distance between the other parties they used to hanker after.

The Lawsian moon is in the ascendant, with Clegg yesterday speaking to Miliband to demand he call off Labour peers trying to scuttle alternative vote legislation. "We're going to kick him hard on this," a member of Clegg's circle said.

The Hughesian moon may also be waning. Shadow ministers end this week irritated by him. If they are simply helping him help Clegg get more from the Tories then, they reason, they are helping the Lib Dems not themselves.

Let them eat snow

George Osborne copped flak for skiing in Klosters. The chancellor, in a black skull and crossbones patterned snood at the royal family's favourite ski resort, was the perfect new year image of us all not being in it together. But, at around the same time, unregarded and 400 miles away, Vince Cable was in Courchevel, where you have to spend double Klosters' rates for the same type of wooden hut. The holiday was a triumph for Cable. Not only did it remain under the radar, but after four years of trying, he graduated to red runs. His après ski activity was writing an essay explaining why Keynes would have backed the coalition.

It used to be said that these two – newly united as habitués of the slope (flaunting their expensive hobby while cutting; "let them eat snow") – were the great divide of this government. As each other's shadow in opposition, they had not got on. Later, Cable refused to work under Osborne as chief secretary to the Treasury. When they were safely berthed in different ministries, bankers bonuses was meant to be the issue on which the pair would have their showdown.

The scale of bonuses will become apparent soon but only single figures of Lib Dems hold out hope of any win in this area. Most have long accepted the desirable outcome is to increase bank lending but sources say that at the "quad" – meetings between Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and the chancellor's number two, Danny Alexander – it is Osborne who ever gave them their hope of progress on the bonus issue, while Cameron has always been gloomy.