Former Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has come under fire after posting a picture of himself with George Osbourne.

Mr Alexander, now Vice President of AIIB, based in Beijing, uploaded the photograph of himself with the former Chancellor and ex-Liberal Democrat leader and one time Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

Mr Alexander was part of the Liberal Democrat negotiating team which drew up the document for the controversial coalition government with the Conservative Party in 2010.

Under the post on his Twitter account, Mr Alexander wrote that he was “delighted to have the chance to see some old friends” as he was returning home after a trip to California to give a lecture to the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.

However, the post proved a controversial reminder for many of the work of the coalition government, which many observers viewed as leaving a toxic legacy for the party after the failure to secure electoral reform and because it marked the beginning of austerity.

Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central, said the picture was a “stark reminder” of why the Liberal Democrats were the “accelerator, not the brake, on hitting the poorest hardest with austerity”.

She added: “This has led to the divisions and inequality we see across the UK today.”