Coalition

An old boss of mine once said to me: when you start a new assignment, seek out a fight — and win it. The same advice should be given to incoming Prime Ministers. U-turns, as Mrs Thatcher knew, just create demand for more U-turns. If the government is willing to revise its NHS plans, then why not reopen the Defence Review, or alter the pledge to spend 0.7 of our national income on overseas aid (or at least abandon the questionable idea of legislating for it)? But seeking out and winning battles, while avoiding too many retreats, is not enough. To be great, a Prime Minister needs good enemies. Mrs

Courtesy of ITV and ComRes: More here.

Andy Burnham has caught up with Coffee House’s revelation earlier this week that the Treasury, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department of Education are going to have to review their position on academy funding because of a legal challenge.  Burnham is twittering, in typically hyperbolic terms, about the matter. But the reality of the situation is rather less dramatic. The coming changes will simply be a matter of preventing the taxpayer paying twice over for a service, once from the academy to the local authority (the new system) and once from the Department of Education to the local authority (the old system). Education is fast turning into one

Forget Balls, today brings one of the most significant moments in the life of the coalition so far: the launch of its Work Programme. The name may be commonplace but, as Fraser suggested earlier, the policy is revolutionary. Over the next year, around one million unemployed people will be enrolled on work schemes run by private companies and charities. Those companies will then be paid between £4,000 and £13,700 for every person they return to proper, long-term work. It is, evidence suggests, an effective and cost-effective way of getting benefit claimants back into the labour market — and it reaches those claimants that the state-run JobCentres can scarcely be bothered

One of the odd things about David Cameron is that he wants to be a consensual radical. Unlike Margaret Thatcher he doesn’t want to have ‘a people’, a section of the electorate that is loyal to him personally. Rather he wants to be seen as a unifying national figure. He is, to borrow a phrase from The Economist, a ‘one nation radical’ But Cameron’s persona doesn’t mean that the left aren’t going to fight him with everything they’ve got. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s assault on the coalition today in the New Statesman is a classic example of the kind of opposition he is going to face. (If you read the

David Cameron came into power promising to deliver the greenest government ever and this week the government published its Natural Environment White Paper. In his article on this site, Richard Benyon – Defra Minister and long-time supporter of rural affairs – explains where he believes this White Paper will make a difference. From provisions to increase outside learning for school children, to recognising the hard work that rural businesses are already doing; there is much to be commended.    ‘The Natural Choice’ promises to repair the damage that has been done to the environment in the recent past and encourage greater involvement in helping nature prosper – the ‘Big Society’