Sitting on a battered sofa in Hornsey’s The Three Compasses pub seems an appropriate place to catch up with a Liberal Democrat. Lynne Featherstone isn’t drinking, although you might not begrudge her one. The Lib Dems at the very top of the party are going through a range of emotions, none of them positive. Vince Cable looks miserable, Paddy Ashdown is irate, while their leader Nick Clegg has taken a year of coalition to flex muscle at a Conservative prime minister.

What of the Lib Dem ministers? They are the foot soldiers of the party in government, surrounded in departments by Conservative ministers enjoying each other’s support. In the space of a year, the Lib Dem ministers have gone from local celebrities (if they were lucky) to working in vast ministries, trying to ensure the coalition’s policies maintain a yellow influence. As they face the same triumphs and defeats of ministerial life, how are the Lib Dem government ranks getting on?

Featherstone says that, from originally being a bit “Babes in the Wood”. Lib Dem ministers have “grown up very fast”. “We’re infinitely capable,” she says. “Most people who deal with us find us to be able, astute, intelligent, articulate human beings, much more so than perhaps the media or anyone else believed prior to dealing with us.”

Asked if she has any issues with the government’s reform programme, Featherstone highlights welfare as one area she, almost, backs wholeheartedly. “I support 85 per cent. It’s been well argued, the case has been well made, the principles are absolutely right.” The same can’t be said for health. “I don’t feel the same about the NHS policy. It’s quite clear: we need to make a case that’s presentable to the nation.”

With the recent local elections and AV referendum defeats, the story outside Whitehall is not positive for a Lib Dem. Featherstone bemoans the descent of the AV campaign into “extreme arguments”, adding: “That’s a shame, because it shouldn’t have been about that. It was about change in politics, and looked very like the old game. I was very sad we couldn’t do it in an exemplary way.”

How does it feel to be almost the sole focus of voters’ anger in the local and devolved elections? Featherstone replies: “We’re a lightning rod for everything.” And then repeats the “human shield” phrase beloved of Lib Dems currently. The party believes the recent local and devolved elections were terribly unjust while the Conservatives got away scot-free, despite being the larger coalition partner. This narrative ignores the common trend in Europe where smaller coalition partners tend to get worse hit in elections.

Featherstone is not the type to mope for long, however. “I’m very philosophical in politics. I think you work in a direction.” Which direction is that? “Where there’s an opportunity to save the country from economic ruin, coinciding with an opportunity to implement Lib Dem policy. It would have been a complete travesty to turn your back on it, saying, ‘I can’t dirty my hands by compromise.’ Given two-thirds of our manifesto is delivered – or being delivered – that’s a phenomenally important thing. That’s the direction you work in. There are slings and arrows on the way. This will not be the first time a political party got a drubbing in the first year of government.”

No, but it is the first time the Lib Dems have been in that position. The equalities minister claims the party is very resilient, and will recover from the biggest stress test it has ever faced. “We will bounce back,” she says.

Faced with the election losses, Featherstone presents two comforts. The first is that it’s the inevitable result of being an insurgent in office. She claims that “coalition is still quite new for people in this country” and that, consequently, “everyone has a go at the Lib Dems”. She tries boldly to pitch the context as the Lib Dems versus the establishment. She explains: “The British establishment is incredibly strong, and that includes Labour. It’s not just the Conservatives or the media. There’s a very long game being played.” She adds: “Now, there’s a vested interest in trying to get rid of us from both sides.”

Another consolation is to continue taking pride in your achievements at a national level. “The Lib Dems are the good guys in all of this.” She laughs: “The media and some parts of other parties don’t wish coalition politics to be understood. They want to say ‘you’ve broken a promise’, when the truth is some of the things in your manifesto could not be delivered because you didn’t win the election.”

She remains loyal to Nick Clegg, saying he is “a very good leader”, adding later that “despite the difficulties, attacks, the Clegg-bashing, he has very, very strong support from the parliamentary party and the party more widely, because he has been engaged throughout. It’s not as if he hasn’t talked about the challenges throughout.”

Featherstone was campaign manager for both of Chris Huhne’s leadership bids. If she’d had her way, and postal votes that arrived late had been counted in December 2007, Huhne would have become leader. I ask her what qualities she saw in the energy secretary. She responds: “He’s a passionate fighter – good for him. I would never control that.”

Featherstone was a relative latecomer to politics. After running a design company, she decided to get involved for her 40th birthday. She moved from local councillor in north London to the London Assembly in 2000, where she served on the transport committee and the Metropolitan Police Authority before making the move to Westminster. A former colleague at City Hall remembers Featherstone as “feisty”, and points out that early attempts to dismiss her as ‘Lynne Featherlight’ failed when it became clear she had the potential to push on to the national stage. She proved a dedicated local campaigner, turning around a huge Labour majority in her Hornsey and Wood Green seat, and seeing off Conservative hopes in the constituency. She was also a pioneer as a politician blogger, with a talent for using it to communicate with her constituents. Blogging is much harder now; she doesn’t blog about any issues beyond her ministerial remit or local issues, and receives a lot of abuse – both polite and impolite – in the comments section.

Dealing with the boss can be tricky for a minister. That relationship is further complicated when they belong to a different party. Does Featherstone feel she has the support of home secretary Theresa May? “Yes, on some things. I’ve got backing across government. I have Theresa as my first obstacle – or not. It’s mostly been not.”

Featherstone refuses to discuss when May has been an obstacle, but says: “We’re still fighting on many fronts.” She adds: “On the equalities agenda, we’re different people, from different parties. But I find her very easy to work with.” Sources close to the minister say it is the Equality Act that provokes most disagreement between the two politicians.

The triumphs for a minister can often be small, unheralded and completely devoid of media fanfare. Featherstone already has hers after 12 months. She is banning wheel-clamping on private land in the Freedom Bill, going through Parliament at time of writing, and it went down a storm. “It seems to be the most popular policy decision this government has made, and it was my decision!”

It led to front-page coverage in the Daily Mail, and Featherstone delights in being able to confuse the Mail and other newspapers about how they should cover her role. It also compensates for the unsympathetic coverage the rest of her job attracts, which she observes with wry amusement. “I’m a front-page heroine when banning wheel-clamping on private land, but then inside it’s ‘rubbish equalities policy’.”

I ask Featherstone if she’s enjoyed the media attention that comes with the role, and she immediately brings up Quentin Letts, who called her “hopeless” in his parliamentary sketch in the Mail on the morning of the interview.

She says she’s grown a thicker skin: “He attacks women, equalities ministers, Lib Dems – and I tick three of those boxes. I now don’t take any notice. When I first did the job I was shocked. How can this man make such ridiculous assertions? He doesn’t know me.”

Along with the triumphs, there are also the indignities of office. The equalities brief can cause problems, as Featherstone admits.

On ministerial visits, she will arrive to discover that people have confused her with her Conservative colleague Maria Miller: “I go somewhere and someone thinks I’m the disabilities minister. I’m taking a look at how that can be communicated better.” This does seem to be down to her vague title, as Featherstone admits. “People think, because my nomenclature is minister for equalities, I cover race, discrimination, age or faith. But I don’t really. Steve Webb is pensions minister, Maria Miller is disabilities minister. Most of those equalities issues are work-based. Andrew Stunell does race and religion because much of that is about community cohesion.”

So, how do you define your remit? “I have women, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. I have the Equality Act, so I do touch on all these areas via discrimination law, and I’m the front-line minister who looks over the Equality and Human Rights Commission.” Then there are the Home Office responsibilities, which include criminal information and violence against women. Featherstone is also in charge of taking the Freedom Bill through its committee stage.

As a minister, there are the appearances in the chamber. While Featherstone believes this is a “different Tory Party than from yesteryear” on equalities, she finds some questions at the despatch box come from the “extreme wings”. She’s not a natural chamber speaker and often prefers to sit close to the doors leading to central lobby when not required on the frontbench: “I don’t always want to sit there, because then you might be in shot, and then you get seen not listening properly. Occasionally I just want to go in and listen, and don’t want to be on show.” She insecurely describes her own performance at ministerial questions as merely “adequate”.  

How do you get things done? Her answer is succinct: “Cross-departmental nagging is my strong point.” One minister who has been on the receiving end tells me, with a little resignation, that Featherstone is “incredibly determined” when she has a cause to pursue.

The definition of what can be classed as ‘inequality’ is very wide: “The biggest shift on equalities is to say it’s about everyone; that could be where you’re born, who you’re born to. It’s all of those things that actually are not equal. If you come from a particular town in a part of the country where there’s no work, that’s an inequality just as much as any other. Equality is for everyone, while acknowledging that, on particular groups, there’s a lot of work to do.”

Two key weapons in Featherstone’s armoury are data, “which will be more accessible, understandable and useful and hold things to account”, and the remodelled Equality and Human Rights Commission. The latter, she assures me, will be “respected, standing up for equalities and human rights in the sense it was always meant to”.

The frustrations of a minister can boil over due to unhelpful civil servants, the inadequate documents that have been sneaked into the red box or the important policies that never get the attention you feel they deserve. When I recently spoke to immigration minister Damian Green, it was court decisions that were provoking the most angst. For Featherstone, it’s the fact that “I’m endlessly frustrated I can’t just [do things] my own way and get what I like.” She adds: “The things that aggravate me are when things are wilfully misused.”

Who misuses things? “The media… or Labour.” She laughs. “When you’re trying to do new things, they’re always open to challenge because people don’t like change. I get annoyed when people don’t understand the purpose and beneficial outcome and put so many obstacles in the way, whether that comes from the media, my side of the coalition or the other side.”

The difficulties of some Lib Dem cabinet ministers, such as Vince Cable, are well documented. I ask Featherstone how the party is finding the experience at a ministerial level. She says at the Home Office she enjoys the “free atmosphere to say what you think”. But she raises the lack of support – being the only Lib Dem at the department – as a serious issue. “You don’t have the advisers you have as secretary of state. You can’t keep abreast of all six areas. So what I agreed with my Home Office coalition partners is, if there’s anything that is going to cause an issue, flag it up to me. There’s no point it being called as an issue when it’s gone to the cabinet committee for home affairs. Let’s see how we can call up the difficulties at an early stage.” On a personal basis, her approach is simple: “It’s like anything in life; if you behave well and give a degree of trust and co-operation you get it back.”

There has also been a learning curve for Featherstone over the lack of thinking time afforded to a minister: “The idea you have an hour or two to think about any particular issue… you have to fight to get time.

“Thinking is really undervalued, or people don’t seem to do it any more, but you have to understand how you make decisions. You have to have that internal voice that judges things. That’s how you operate. That’s the responsibility of the minister to make that judgement.”

Overall, Featherstone is enjoying office, as she concludes: “I love coalition. It’s the most sensible method of government I’ve witnessed in my lifetime.” As with many ministers, she just hopes her work and that of her colleagues is eventually appreciated. “My hope is people recognise, in the longer term, [that] the Lib Dems have made a huge difference to this country.”

Tags: Equalities, Home Office, Issue 36, Liberal Democrats, Lynne featherstone, Nick Clegg, Theresa May