FEW things frighten a British politician as much as a phone call from the News of the World, a ferocious, ruthless Sunday tabloid that is the country's best-selling newspaper. Many British daily newspapers are raucous, salacious and intrusive, while also being astonishingly professional. The NOTW takes all this to another level: no other publication devotes the same resources to getting scoops. The result is a weekly product that routinely crushes the competition, thanks to a potent blend of hard work, money and prurience. At its worst, it combines the cynicism of a brothel madame with the self-righteousness of a lynch mob.

Given all this, it is at once depressing and not hard to see why David Cameron—a man who thrives on projecting a slightly old-fashioned aura of gentlemanly decency—hired as his press chief not just any old poacher turned gamekeeper, but a former editor of the NOTW, Andy Coulson. Mr Coulson, who in his day ran several stories embarrassing to senior Conservative (as well as non-Conservative) politicians, was hired in opposition, and followed Mr Cameron to Downing Street as head of communications, a post that places Mr Coulson deep inside the prime minister's inner circle.

Mr Coulson resigned as editor of the NOTW after the tabloid's royal editor and a private investigator were imprisoned in 2007 for conspiracy to access voicemail messages on the mobile telephones of aides to Britain's royal family. Mr Coulson said at the time he was stepping down to take responsibility for the incident while insisting he had been wholly in the dark about the hacking activities of the journalist, and had never sanctioned such activities. A House of Commons committee looked into this murky tale afresh last year, but did not get very far, expressing exasperation at what the cross-party body called "collective amnesia" among newspaper executives summoned for questioning.

Now Mr Coulson is back in the headlines, after a former NOTW reporter spoke to the New York Times for a lengthy investigative article published this weekend, and alleged that Mr Coulson was aware of phone hacking. Do not hold your breath for any of these allegations to be settled, one way or another. The former reporter accusing Mr Coulson is not what you could call the ideal witness: he was sacked from the NOTW because of drink and drugs problems.

In a statement quoted by the Guardian, the tabloid's management said:

"The New York Times story contains no new evidence – it relies on unsubstantiated allegations from unnamed sources or claims from disgruntled former employees that should be treated with extreme scepticism given the reasons for their departures from this newspaper. We reject absolutely any suggestion there was a widespread culture of wrongdoing at the News of the World."

Meanwhile, defenders and attackers of Mr Coulson are forming up behind wearily partisan lines. Labour politicians, including former government ministers who suspect their phones were hacked, are demanding the police investigate further. Conservative politicians and commentators are lining up to say the whole thing is variously a Labour party campaign or an attempt by the New York Times to get at Rupert Murdoch, boss of the NOTW's parent company and of the Wall Street Journal, a rival to the New York Times.

The only thing that is crystal clear is Mr Coulson's importance to the team around the prime minister. The BBC is running quotes tonight from an unnamed "very senior" figure insisting that Mr Coulson's job is safe.

Mr Coulson is far from the first tabloid journalist to be hired by a prime minister, of course. Notably, Tony Blair relied heavily on a former political editor of the left-leaning Mirror, Alastair Campbell (described as a "genius" by Mr Blair in his memoirs published on September 1st). But Mr Campbell was steeped in party politics before joining the Blair team: he was close to earlier Labour leaders, notably Neil Kinnock.

Mr Coulson came from the world of showbusiness and celebrity reporting, before shooting up the ranks at Mr Murdoch's British tabloid stable. He offers not just a link to Mr Murdoch's media empire and an insider's knowledge of the tougher end of the press. He is also often described as a source of invaluable advice on popular opinion for Mr Cameron and his closest allies, many of whom hail from the rarefied upper reaches of the British class system.

Unless something dramatic changes, it seems likely that headlines about Mr Coulson will soon fade away, leaving the press chief to return to his work of crafting and inspiring headlines about others.

Is it naive, though, to feel a certain melancholy that Mr Cameron should rely so heavily on a man who ran the News of the World, of all tabloids? It is more than just another newspaper. Even by the standards of the tabloids, it is capable of unusual cruelty and unfairness in the pursuit of a few column inches. Alongside the villains it boasts of exposing, its victims include numerous ordinary Britons whose only crime was to be considered newsworthy for a few moments on a given Sunday. Where all that fits into Mr Cameron's vision of a Big Society is something of a mystery.

A typographic error in this posting was corrected on September 6th

YOUR blogger spent 11 hours in the (paper and ink) company of Tony Blair yesterday, and a very odd experience it was too. The former prime minister's memoirs were published in the morning, leaving just enough time to read the whole thing, then write a print column for this week's newspaper (it was a late night). Bagehot should perhaps start with a confession. Perhaps because I watched Mr Blair from abroad for almost the entirety of his term in office, I have never quite fathomed the visceral loathing he inspires in so many British people. I think his term in office was a disappointment in many ways, and regret that he only came to see the need for deep structural reforms of the public sector once it was too late, and his political capital was almost all spent.

I can see how divisive a figure he was, even before the defining crisis over Iraq. He has a staggering self-belief, which comes across in his memoirs, and he has a taste for the finer things in life which sits awkwardly with British ideas of how left-wing politicians should behave. He himself admits in his book that he is manipulative, and that he was ready to trim and shade on the truth to advance his political goals. But none of these flaws make him unique as a politician. Yet he inspires unique levels of dislike.

In my print column, I ponder the thought that part of the reason is his elusive, shape-shifting nature. The question "Just who does Tony Blair think he is?" is as much an accusation to British ears as a philosophical enquiry. He claimed the mantle of a "progressive" Labour leader who cared about the poor and the hungry of not just Britain but the world, yet freely admits to preferring five star hotels to two star lodgings and revels in the company of other world leaders. In his book, he admits not just to relishing holidays on private Caribbean estates, in the villas of Tuscan aristocrats or at the residences of various heads of state and government, but to arriving "mob-handed" too, meaning that he descended with his wife and children, plus his mother-in-law and nanny and assorted other attendants (or in the case of the poor Spanish prime minister, sending his extended family in his stead). He sent his children to selective Catholic schools, while leading a party bitterly opposed to pupil selection. He forged deep friendships with first Bill Clinton then George W Bush.

It is not just that his behaviour opens him to charges of hypocrisy. It is also the impossibility of pigeon-holing him. In speech, he could sound like the middle class, private school and Oxford educated north London barrister that he once was, or sound almost working class, dropping his Hs and dropping "y'knows" and "gottas" into every sentence. He is at once blessed with what could be an almost telepathic instinct for the British public mood, and is capable of being remarkably obtuse: in one moment of rich comedy, he complains of the Queen assuming "a certain hauteur" with him (clue for TB: she's the Queen).

But this goes beyond the common charge that he was a phoney, or a liar. Reading Mr Blair's memoirs in one go, you come away with the abiding impression that he is, among other things, quite a strange person: perhaps one of the oddest to reach high office in the history of modern British politics. Mr Blair says he wrote the book himself: it is sufficiently strange in style that I think I mostly believe him.

There are passages of rather brilliant political analysis. Progressive parties, he writes at one point, are "always in love with their own emotional impulses", starting with the idea that if power is placed in their hands, they will use it for the benefit of the people: thus the more power, the more benefit. Hence, he says, their affinity with the state and the public sector. They fail to see, however, that the state and public sector can be vested interests too, and that as people become better educated and more prosperous, they don't necessarily want anyone else making their choices for them. The additional problem with intellectual left-wingers, he argues, is that they care for ordinary people, but struggle to feel like them. They do not, in his matey phrase, "get aspiration".

There are passages of flip, breezy name-dropping, eg, Nelson Mandela is saintly but can be "as fly as hell when the occasion demands". There are bits of insane, very un-English candour: we are told that Mr Blair likes access to a good bathroom when travelling, because jet lag plays havoc with his digestion. We are not just told about his teenage son getting drunk one night, but told that around 2.30am he insisted on coming into Mr Blair's bed, then spent the rest of the night alternating between apologies and throwing up.

He is adamant that his instincts and values are progressive, and naturally of the left. But on the defining crisis of his time in office, the war on terror, he almost defiantly tramples on the instincts and values of his party. He is not just generous about Mr Bush. He is, literally, kinder about Dick Cheney than he is about several colleagues in his own cabinet, saying that there is much to be said for Mr Cheney's central insight that the war on terror is a war, and that America faces a threat from a single ideological enemy, namely extremist Islam.

His long, self-justifying chapters on Iraq are pretty unconvincing. He begins by seeming to apologise straightforwardly for the fact that faulty intelligence was offered to parliament, the press and the public to justify the war, only to start cavilling and nitpicking on the details. He answers questions about the cost of toppling Saddam with what-ifs. Things would have been much better, he says if only Iran and al-Qaeda had not meddled: their meddling was not foreseen.

Now, this newspaper supported the invasion of Iraq, as (for what it is worth), did this blogger personally. But what has happened since gives me at least pause for thought: it is startling to find Mr Blair seemingly unhesitating in his conviction that military intervention might be needed again, this time to tackle Iran's nuclear programme, at least in interviews to promote his memoirs.

Even the prose style is odd: the rootless, multicultural argot of the global VIP who spends his life at 35,000 feet. References to favourite parables from the New Testament pop up, alongside some very odd similes. At one point, describing how uniquely close he was to Gordon Brown in opposition, he compares them to a pair of lovers, impatiently receiving a visit from old friends while being "desperate to get to love-making". A feisty press aide is described as a man of "clanking great balls", while a favourite minister is "fully simpatico with the direction of change".

And yet his defence is not that history will absolve him, or some such appeal to exceptionalism. Instead, Mr Blair repeatedly defends his inconsistencies and complexities by appealing to the court of mass public opinion, and his success at winning over millions of "normal people".

The old Labour party was full of oddballs and obsessives, he says more than once. At its worst, it resembled a "cult". His allies lay not inside the party, but among the broad mass of the general public. He boasts of having avoided student politics at Oxford, and of his many non-political friends. He talks about his drive at all times to see Labour as ordinary people saw it. In seeking lines of attack against each of the Tory leaders he faced in the House of Commons, he says he tried to shun shrill partisanship, in favour of some "telling" observation that would trigger head-nodding in an ordinary voter. Again and again, he points to his success with voters as proof that he was on to something. Look, he says again and again, I won three elections in a row.

Ordinary people, he says, are not as dogmatic as politicians. They are not interested in left-right labels, or even as fussed about consistency as party loyalists. There is an interesting passage where he talks about Harriet Harman, then a senior member of his shadow cabinet, sending her son to grammar school. Yes, he concedes, her decision was a "real shocker", after all: "The whole of the Labour Party programme since the 1960s had been to abolish academic selection and bring in comprehensive, non-selective schooling." Yet Mr Blair, then Labour leader of the opposition, refused to denounce her, though he says he was in a minority of one. Why? Well, he muses:

"although Labour people would understand why Harriet might have to resign over this, no ordinary person would. Some woman politician decides to send her kid to grammar school. She thinks it gives him the best chance of a good education. Her party forces her to resign. What do you think? You think that's a bit extreme; and not very nice; and a bit worrying; and is that what still makes me a bit anxious about those Labour people?"

In other words, yes, Ms Harman was being hypocritical, but when it comes to family, ordinary people understand a bit of hypocrisy.

A common jibe against Mr Blair is that he is really a Tory in disguise, who pretended to be a Labour politician. His defence is different: that real people are just not fussed about partisan claims of ownership, when it comes to policies. Yes, he says, Britain needed the economic and industrial reforms of the Thatcher era. It was, frankly, a good thing that Labour lost the 1983 election (though he campaigned for Labour at the time). It took time, but he came to believe that the Conservatives were also right when it came to introducing choice and market forces into the public sector. Blairite plans for foundation schools, freed from local authority control, were inspired by Tory ideas. And now, he notes, David Cameron's coalition has borrowed the idea in its turn, and is pushing ahead with free and academy schools.

The winning centre ground of politics is shared space, in short. That may alarm more partisan types, but, he writes:

"that's the way it is! And it's not a bad thing—in fact it's rather good, and the public, by the way, understood this ages ago."

Among other things, this makes the character and likeability of party leaders of "paramount importance" in modern politics, he concludes, because voters make choices on instinct rather than by studying party manifestos or policy platforms.

This is, of course, a pretty self-serving analysis if you happen to be a former party leader who bet big that likeability and emotional intelligence trumped traditional party boundaries. But it is possible to find Mr Blair a bit exasperating and also concede that he is accurately describing how lots and lots of voters think and act. At election time, they seek out a government that somehow matches their instincts, aspirations and anxieties, and in doing so may switch from party to party and back again, while always feeling that they are being perfectly consistent.

There is, I conclude in my print column, a pointed lesson here for Labour Party members as they choose a new leader this month. Choosing a boss poses a dilemma for all parties: namely, to whom does a party leader belong? Does he or she belong to the party, or should members be seeking someone who could plausibly belong to the country as a whole, as a national leader?

Mr Blair makes no secret of what he thinks. Politics is about numbers, and majorities. It is about "getting" what people think, and welcoming the chance to craft policies that meet their evolving desires, while reflecting certain enduring values. It is no accident, I think, that his book at times sounds like a memoir or a management tract by some transatlantic business tycoon. A businessman can point to certain objective markers of success: a soaring share price, booming profits, heroic rises in sales. I think Mr Blair is drawn to the same impulse, in part out of frustration at his lack of acclaim within his own party: look, dummies, I won three elections in a row. No other Labour leader has achieved anything of the sort, after all.

But then? Mr Blair quotes several parables in his book: his favourite is the parable of the sower, he tells us. He does not mention the parable of the talents, but it comes to mind. He really was a remarkable figure, but to what end?

In the opening lines of the book, he notes, jaw-droppingly, that on the day in 1997 that he walked into 10 Downing Street, he had never been the most junior of ministers before. Being prime minister was his first and only job in government. And he was, at times, brilliant. He presided over a transformational decade, that saw Britain become more liberal, open and, yes, at ease with itself in all sorts of important ways. But was that enough? Was he just lucky to ride an economic boom that his government neither understood nor used responsibly?

Are his achievements enough to outweigh his mistakes? I am not sure. In the end, though, I think the question makes me sadder than it makes me angry.

A CLEAN sweep of self-congratulatory headlines in the British press this morning, as newspapers from left to right heap praise on the "British public" for their world-beating generosity towards victims of Pakistan's horrible floods. The Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, the Guardian and others picked up the statement by Brendan Gormley, head of an umbrella body for aid agencies co-ordinating relief efforts in this country, the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), that: "the UK public are leading the way and shaming politicians across the world to do what they have to do." This British generosity is contrasted in most press reports with complaints from a senior United Nations official about a "quite extraordinary" lack of support from the international community.

Are the British really so unusually generous? The glib headlines about "Kind-hearted Brits" surely ignores the presence of a large Pakistani and British Asian diaspora in this country, whose contributions must have a big impact on the overall figure for British fund-raising. According to local press cuttings, such as this 10 day old article from the northern town of Rochdale, it was local mosques that led the initial fund-raising, prompting the town's member of parliament and a local appeal co-ordinator, Imran Mohammed, to urge the "wider community" to join in.

Why does this matter? Well, because there is quite a lot of evidence out there that Pakistan has a serious image problem, in Britain and elsewhere. The distinctly chilly international response to this colossal tragedy raises all manner of painful and interesting questions for that country. That must be doubly true in Britain, with its long and close links to Pakistan, where reactions to this tragedy will reveal much about the state of British multiculturalism, integration and even foreign policy.

The Rochdale Observer article quotes Mr Mohammed saying:

"From reading some of the blog sites, there seems to have been a reluctance among some of the wider community to become involved in this appeal because of ridiculous claims that the money raised would go towards things like funding terrorism."

For national newspapers simply to pat the British public on the back for their generosity strikes me as ducking these questions. I note that back in July, before the floods, a YouGov poll commissioned by the think tank Chatham House found that Pakistan was viewed very negatively by British respondents, pipped only by North Korea and Iran in the unpopularity stakes.

This is a swift blog posting not a news story, but I did call the DEC to ask if they had picked up any hard data. A spokesman said they were a bit busy to start collecting detailed statistics on which communities were donating what, which is reasonable at a time like this. But he did say: "Anecdotally, there has been a really strong response from the Pakistani and British-Asian community." But this was not the whole story, he added: it would not be fair to say there had been no response from other segments of British society.

Perhaps a clearer picture will emerge in coming days. Meanwhile, the BBC website has this useful round-up of reasons offered by analysts and academics for the slow international response. These include donor fatigue after Haiti and the poor reputation of Pakistan's government when it comes to corruption, its alleged ambivalence over Islamic terrorism, the widely-reported fuss when Pakistan's president opted to continue a tour of Europe during the first days of the flood, and hefty Pakistani spending on military assets, including a nuclear weapons programme. Interestingly, the panel of experts also talks about slow-building disasters prompting less of a response, typically, than sudden catastrophes like earthquakes.

One line that rings alarm bells for me is the argument (common in the comment sections of news websites) that this disaster is somehow one for wealthy Muslim governments or Islamic charities to handle, as if religious affiliation trumps human suffering. I would like to believe the wider British public rejects any such idea. I am not sure one morning of self-praising headlines settles the argument.

THE USUAL sterile, depressing debate is upon us this week, as Britain's teenagers wait for results from A-level school leaving examinations. Every year, the number of good grades goes up. Every year, the right says exams are getting easier. Every year, government ministers and the left-wing dominated education establishment says that is a vicious slander against the nation's young, who are simply working harder.

I woke this morning to a commentator on the BBC, offering precisely this argument: how dare people say exams are getting easier, he grumped, when we all know that pupils are working harder than ever before and being taught with more imagination and flair.

Here is Bagehot's attempt to be helpful. What if this is a false choice? What if lots of students are working harder than before, but exams are also getting easier.

I even have evidence to support this hypothesis. Through no virtue of my own but dumb good luck, a quarter of a century ago I was fortunate enough to attend a ferociously academic, selective private school in the middle of London, with inspiring, well-paid teachers, engaged (and often driven) parents and appallingly ambitious pupils who worked like stink, even back then in the supposedly laid-back 1980s. The school must come close to a perfect control for examination grade inflation: its results were always at or near the top of league tables 25 years ago, and they are still. Its pupils worked about as hard as pupils ever work anywhere, and it is hard to imagine its teachers are significantly better now, because they were amazing then.

I am (just) old enough to have taken O-levels, the old precursor to GSCE (examinations taken two years before school leaving). In my year, it was fantastically rare to get straight A grades. I think three pupils achieved this. Maybe another five got 10 As and 1 B grade. Now, I note, 98% of GSCEs passed at my old school are A or A* grade (a new top grade that did not exist in the old days).

Here are tables for GSCE and A level results at the school since 1988. I would suggest it is pretty hard not to see examinations getting easier. Indeed, I would suggest these results show jaw-dropping grade inflation.

The GCSE results show percentage at ‘Grade A’ and ‘Grades ABC’ as well as the total number of GCSEs taken each year.

GCSE results

The GCSE results show percentage at ‘Grade A’ and ‘Grades ABC’ as well as the total number of GCSEs taken each year.

A-Level results

Overall results are listed

DAVID Cameron gave a speech today about gingering up British tourism. It was full of all manner of sensible stuff about the importance of the tourist industry. It is Britain's third highest export earner after chemicals and financial services, he noted, and employs almost 10% of the British workforce.

In keeping with his coalition's new focus on drumming up new business in emerging economies, there was an interesting but sadly incomplete passage about Britain's feeble record at attracting tourists from China, a fast-growing market that is in the cross-hairs for every tourism minister and promotion body in the world. As the prime minister put it:

Huge opportunities are being missed. The UK has fallen from sixth to eleventh place in the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Ratings between 2008 and 2009.

I want to see us in the top five destinations in the world. But that means being much more competitive internationally.  Take Chinese tourists, for example.

We’re their 22nd most popular destination. But Germany is forecast to break into their top ten. Why can’t we?

Currently we only have 0.5 per cent of the market share of Chinese tourists.  If we could increase that to just 2.5 per cent this could add over half a billion pounds of spending to our economy and some sources suggest this could mean as many as 10,000 new jobs.

Mr Cameron had a long list of solutions. He called for more promotion of British heritage (after Labour's "cool Britannia" focus on modernity). He wants to decentralise tourist promotion to give more power and smarter incentives to local bodies (that'll be the Big Society, tick). He thinks more tourists would come if Britain offered faster trains, quicker customs clearance at Heathrow and speedier delivery of visas via online applications.

Those suggestions are all fine, as far as they go. Except that there is another, much more important, reason for Britain's feeble performance as a tourist destination for China's new middle classes. But Mr Cameron could not bring himself to mention it.

By pure coincidence I was recently talking to a boss at one of the largest Chinese travel agencies in Europe, and he brought up Britain's low figures. "Britain should be really successful, it is very attractive to Chinese tourists," he told me. The problem, he said was that Britain had decided to stay out of the European Union's borderless Schengen area. Chinese tourists heading to continental Europe only need a single Schengen visa to travel freely within 25 countries (22 EU members plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland). Schengen visas were already pretty fiddly, he said. If his tourists wanted to add Britain to their tour of Europe, they needed to apply for a separate British visa, and that was another whole layer of expense and inconvenience.

Take Switzerland, my friendly tour operator said. It never used to be that popular, but once it joined the Schengen Area in 2008, it really took off as a stop on Chinese tours: hordes of free-spending tourists now popped there to admire the lakes, mountains and to buy themselves Swiss watches. "If Britain followed Switzerland into the Schengen system, I reckon half the Chinese tourists on the continent would go to the UK," he said. It was not the first time I had heard this, either.

Now, British readers may well feel that tourism promotion is a poor reason for joining the Schengen area. They may argue strongly that the benefit of maintaining separate border controls at British ports and airports outweighs the appeal of luring a few hundred thousand Chinese tourists to these isles (though the French government recently announced that Chinese visitors now topped the tourist league tables as the biggest spenders, by nationality).

But given that travel agents name Britain's non-membership of Schengen as the biggest reason—by far—for the country's failure to attract Chinese tourists, it is at least odd that Mr Cameron failed to mention it, no? Well, no, it is not odd at all. The EU is a toxic subject for the prime minister and his coalition. So stand by for any number of odd speeches that dance around the costs of Britain's glorious isolation.

I WOKE this morning to a radio news item about a proposal to build Britain's biggest dairy farm, a "super-farm" which would be home to more than 8,000 cows—a herd about 60 times larger than the British average. As you would expect, local residents have expressed quite a range of different concerns, and the presenter and two suitably disputatious experts were soon hard at it, arguing about whether this farm was vital for increasing the economic efficiency of British milk production, or whether it amounted to battery farming for cows.

The BBC presenter began by noting the concerns of local residents, expressed at a public meeting the night before. These concerns, he reported, revolved around the super-farm's smell, the pollution it might cause, its likely effect on house prices and, above all, the welfare of the cattle. House prices and animal welfare: we definitely weren't in Kansas anymore. Instead this was a stunningly British debate.

Later, we got on to climate change, as one of the experts (a pro-efficiency economist) noted the benefits of capturing methane from belching, farting cattle kept indoors. In the future, many more animals will have to be kept indoors to curb greenhouse gas emissions, he said: a point that got my attention even at that early hour.

The other guest, a man from Compassion in World Farming, talked about the cows being rammed full of hormones and antibiotics.

To anyone who has spent the last few years on the continent of Europe, however, one area of debate was strikingly absent. Nobody mentioned the competition this farm would offer to small, less efficient farmers. After years following EU farm policy, this was a startling moment. In Brussels, public debates about the EU dairy industry start and finish with angst about the fate of small family farms and hill farms, and how they are struggling to survive in the face of industrial agri-business. Ministers from places like France, Belgium and Germany fall over themselves to talk up milk price rises as a boon to farmers (rarely mentioning consumers). All the talk is of market management, price controls, income support, subsidies and "solidarity" with family producers. When it comes to farming, "efficient" is a dirty word in Brussels.

So what does this omission say? Does it mean the British are more committed to free-market economics than continentals? Or are we simply less altruistic than continental Europeans? What about the concern for animal welfare (a topic that leaves the French public quite cold, as a French agriculture minister once admitted to me in an interview). That is altruism of a sort, surely. Unless it is that old British form of altruism of legend, that cares more about animals than people: was this debate the bovine equivalent of the stereotypical English toff who will send his children to boarding school at seven, but dotes on his gundogs?

I suspect the answer lies in a mix of all the above. Oh, and the fact that in the British public mind, farmers may well be rather rich people, which is another thing that sets the British apart from continental Europe. In Britain, the word farmer can readily evoke a man with 100,000 hectares, several Range Rovers and his own helicopter. In much of Europe, farmer is a term indistinguishable from peasant (a fact I once had reinforced after comparing a small toddler to a "little farmer" to an Italian mother in a playground, because he was wearing a terrifically smart padded blue coat with a corduroy collar, and looked to me like a Norfolk grain baron at a point-to-point).

ONE of the many shocks of returning to Britain after 12 years is the dramatic increase in powers for the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolved governments. I still feel a faint pang of surprise every time I hear a BBC reporter talk about some policy announcement from Westminster, only to add the caveat that it only applies to England and Wales, or even England alone.

Today's newspapers bring a fresh, salutary reminder that this country is run rather differently now. They report on an independent budget review in Scotland, which has recommended that the Scottish executive take a hard look at more or less every big-ticket spending item north of the border, ahead of hefty cuts in public spending.

In one sense, the items on the chopping block look familiar to anyone following the debate on public spending from London. The independent review, commissioned by ministers in Edinburgh, suggests that up to one in ten public sector jobs might have to disappear, ideally by natural wastage, meaning as many as 50,000 jobs. It talks of the urgent need to rethink funding for universities. It raises interesting questions about whether health service spending should be ring-fenced, ie, protected from cuts. The report spells out what a fall in capital spending will mean for big infrastructure projects like a new road bridge over the Firth of Forth.

Cuts are politically painful anywhere. The difference in Scotland, as local commentators point out, is that in several key areas successive devolved governments in Edinburgh have defined themselves by spending more generously than the British government. Put still more bluntly, the Scottish Nationalists (SNP) bought first place in the 2007 elections (though not an overall majority) by promising to freeze council tax, abolish student fees and make medical prescriptions free.

Other cherished benefits in Scotland, unknown in England, include free personal care and home nursing for the elderly. The independent review suggests all these policies could be at risk.

Douglas Fraser, business and economy editor at BBC Scotland, notes that the report may in fact undersell the crisis, as it assumes spending cuts of 12.5% will be needed. The British government in London is talking about departments having to identify cuts of between 25% and 40%.

Mr Fraser spells out the political subtext. The report, he argues, challenges:

...pretty much every spending innovation the Scottish Parliament has taken over the 11 years since it was set up.

Abolition of up-front student fees: free personal care for the elderly, free eye tests and dental checks: expanding provision of free school meals: free bus travel for all pensioners - and that was just those under Labour and the LibDems.

The SNP came in to power with abolition of bridge tolls, followed by abolition of the graduate endowment, phasing out of prescription charges and hospital car parking fees.

It's been opposed to letting Scottish Water out of ministerial hands, and it's opposed to private provision of NHS services.

This was the fiscal and dominant end of proving how home rule could make Scotland different.

And yet every one of these initiatives to expand state provision and eligibility has been directly challenged by the Independent Budget Review.

It also firmly rejects the campaigning style at three elections, in which parties offered an auction of additional police officers, nurses and reduced class sizes

For balance, it is worth noting that some corners of the Scottish press are still refusing to admit that the crisis is anything other than a brutal imposition by Anglo-Saxon financial scoundrels (standing in for Sassenach squires this time) on the decent people of Hibernia. Here, for example is the Herald's take:

It’s worth remembering, however, that the age of austerity was not brought about by the Scottish Government.

It started in the United States because big banks, including the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS, decided to lend money on an unbelievable scale to people who couldn’t afford to pay it back – the sub-prime market.

As a result thousands of people in Scotland have already lost their jobs and thanks to the irresponsible bankers, some of whom are now enjoying retirement on huge pensions, 50,000 more public sector workers could lose their livelihoods.

UK plc is deeply in the red and its Scottish subsidiary, as well as the other devolved nations, are sharing the pain, though Scotland, with its high reliance on public sector jobs, may feel it more than the others

Wales enjoys a rather diluted form of autonomy, compared to Scotland. But the Welsh first minister, Carwyn Jones, appears equally conscious that cuts in Wales are about more than money: they challenge a prevailing vision of society. The Guardian reports today that Mr Jones has been out and about for the last two weeks asking public sector workers for money-saving ideas. The genesis of his tour, the newspaper reports, was a visit to hospital with a stomach problem, when he found porters in the accident and emergency department "brimming with ideas" to save money and find news efficiencies.

Mr Jones leads the Welsh Labour party and governs in coalition with the Welsh nationalists of Plaid Cymru. You may think his listening tour sounds oddly reminiscent of David Cameron's "big society" drive to ask local communities how to spend money. The same thought occurred to the Guardian, it seems, because they report that Mr Jones "fought shy" of any comparison with the prime minister's localism push. Instead, Mr Jones told the newspaper:

"We take a different view in Wales. It's right the state has a role in looking after its citizens. That means delivering a decent health service, a good education service, I don't see what's wrong with that."

The Tories would doubtless protest that the big society also sees a role for the state in looking after its citizens, delivering a decent health service and the rest. But it is revealing that the Welsh first minister's instinct is to claim that his electorate takes a distinctive view of the contract between citizen and state. If that is true, then the cuts being decided in London will surely have distinctive political consequences in the devolved parts of the United Kingdom.

"ANGRY"? Really? Speaking in Turkey earlier today, David Cameron used strikingly forthright language to describe his dismay at French-led efforts to block Turkey from membership of the European Union, saying:

I’m here to make the case for Turkey’s membership of the EU. And to fight for it.

Do you know who said this: “Here is a country which is not European…its history, its geography, its economy, its agriculture and the character of its people – admirable people though they are – all point in a different direction…This is a country which…cannot, despite what it claims and perhaps even believes, be a full member.”

It might sound like some Europeans describing Turkey. But it was actually General de Gaulle describing the UK before vetoing our EU accession. We know what it’s like to be shut out of the club. But we also know that these things can change.

When I think about what Turkey has done to defend Europe as a NATO ally and what Turkey is doing today in Afghanistan alongside our European allies it makes me angry that your progress towards EU Membership can be frustrated in the way it has been. My view is clear. I believe it’s just wrong to say Turkey can guard the camp but not be allowed to sit inside the tent.

To take first things first, Mr Cameron is quite right that the Turkey-EU relationship is in a bad place right now, and right to point out that this a huge strategic mistake. This newspaper has long argued that it is in Europe's strategic interests to admit Turkey, a dynamic, fast-growing, youthful, officially secular Muslim nation that sits astride vital shipping and trade routes, not to mention potentially important routes for energy pipelines that can bring oil and gas from the east, while avoiding Russia. Turkey is an important regional player, with close links to all sorts of places that matter to Europe such as Iran.

Mr Cameron was also speaking as a British prime minister leading a big trade delegation to a fast growing emerging market, home to plenty of touchily nationalistic politicians and commentators. In those circumstances he can be forgiven for laying it on with a trowel.

But his protestations of anger were still unwise, for a few reasons.

One is that his indignation was so obviously baloney. I am sure he is dismayed and concerned about the possibility of Turkey sliding away from Europe. But angry? Come on.

On a minor note, even his nice soundbite about it being wrong to allow someone to guard a camp but not sit inside the tent, does not stand up to much scrutiny. All sorts of camps are guarded by people you would not want to sit inside your tent.

More importantly, he is the representative of a British electorate who are not remotely "angry" about Turkey being excluded from the EU just now. Most British voters do not know much about Turkey's membership hopes. Successive governments in Britain have been leading supporters of Turkish accession, along with places like Poland, Spain or Sweden. But when the British public are asked about the question directly they are distinctly lukewarm. The EU is wary of polling the Turkey question too often, but a 2006 Eurobarometer found only one existing member, Sweden, where more people supported Turkish entry than opposed it. In Britain, 30% said yes to Turkey, 52% said no, and 18% did not know.

You only have to look at British views towards Polish immigrants, who are pretty unchallenging when it comes to integration, to wonder how they would react to the arrival of large numbers of Turks. And indeed, for all his panegyrics to the dynamic Turkish economy and Turkey's ability to influence Iran diplomatically, Mr Cameron has been having the same thought, judging by his careful comments at an Ankara press conference when he reserved the right to impose restrictions on large flows of labour migrants from Turkey before hastily saying he was sure no restrictions would be needed. According to the BBC:

At a joint press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mr Cameron suggested the UK would impose provisional restrictions - as with Bulgarians and Romanians after they joined - on the right of Turkish people to live and work in the UK after it joined the EU.

But the rapid rate of Turkey's economic growth would make any restrictions unnecessary in decades to come, he added.

He said: "One of the effects here is that [as] economies grow and become more evolved, the pressure and flow [of people] between countries isn't so great."

Mr Cameron could also have added: and if there are big flows of migrants from Turkey, the chances are they would head to EU countries with long-established Turkish communities, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Austria or Belgium, before they headed to Britain.

But I have a bigger beef with his protestations of outrage at those EU leaders who have been blocking Turkey's entry. He offered a neat list of three reasons why he thought some European governments were opposed to Turkey:

To make the case for Turkey’s membership of the EU and to seize the huge advances I believe we can make in our trade and our security there are three groups whose views we need to take on directly.

First, the protectionists. They see the rise of a country like Turkey as an economic threat we must defend against – not an opportunity to further our prosperity.

Second, the polarised. They see the history of the world through the prism of a clash of civilisations. They think Turkey has to choose between East and West and that choosing both is just not an option.

Third, the prejudiced. Those who wilfully misunderstand Islam. They see no difference between real Islam and the distorted version of the extremists. They think the problem is Islam itself. And they think the values of Islam can just never be compatible with the values of other religions, societies, or cultures.

All these arguments are just plain wrong.

I think Mr Cameron is right to call leaders like Mr Sarkozy on protectionism. Earlier this year, the French president staged an elaborate pantomime for the benefit of voters, summoning the boss of Renault to browbeat him about plans to make a small car, the Clio, at a plant in Turkey while his industry minister muttered about the French state increasing its stake in the carmaker to gain more control of its production choices (though, in fact, Renault's boss reportedly told Mr Sarkozy he could only make money on the Clio if it was built in Turkey, thanks to lower social charges there, and in the end the French government let the matter drop).

I think Mr Cameron is also right to call some EU leaders out for implying that Turkey is not European enough to deserve entry to the club. Mr Sarkozy is fond of saying that he will not be the one "to tell French schoolchildren that the borders of Europe extend to Syria and Iraq". (Though thanks to France's ex-colonial overseas territories and départements, he is of course quite happy to tell French schoolchildren that the EU's borders extend to Brazil). With my own ears I have heard another top EU leader, over a private lunch, state flatly that the EU is a Christian club, and public opinion will never stand for Turkish entry.

And yet, and yet, it is too neat to say that opposition to Turkey is all born of protectionism or Islamophobia. If you believe in the case for Turkish accession, as I do, you also have to admit that there are some perfectly understandable reasons to worry about it. And if you are a British supporter of Turkish accession, you have to be especially careful to admit that some of those understandable reasons matter less in Britain than elsewhere.

In a previous pseudonymous existence, I wrote in June about American supporters of Turkish EU membership, and how they often seemed to assume that it would not be that big a deal. This, I wrote, often seemed to be linked to a rather condescending view that European countries should hurry up and form a federal union, pronto, if they wished to count on the world stage. This, I felt, risked the accusation that Americans are rather casual about other people's sovereignty.

And Britain? Well, in Germany, for example, it is a big deal that if Turkey did achieve membership in 2025, say, it is projected to have a larger population than any other EU country. That would give Turkey, overnight, the largest delegation of members of the European Parliament. That profoundly shocks Germans, who take the EP rather seriously. In Britain, many people could not care less if a delegation of chimpanzees were elected to the Strasbourg assembly.

In France, for example, it is a source of profound angst that Turkey is full of farmers. How on earth could the Common Agricultural Policy survive the cost of subsidising tens of millions of Turks, it is asked in Paris. In Britain (and in Sweden), few would mourn the CAP if it vanished.

In Brussels, it is common to hear grumbling that British support for Turkish membership is essentially a plot to broaden the EU so much that it can never achieve deeper political and economic union. I think that is unfair, but not wholly. There are certainly British Eurosceptics whose support for Turkey reminds me of the old adage: you can also kill a cat with cream. If some of them could admit China, I suspect they would.

I am sure Mr Cameron is sincere in his support for Turkey. But he also has a vision of the EU as a relatively loose trading alliance of nation states, rather than a deeper economic or political union. That vision is both compatible with Turkish entry and sits at one end of the spectrum of opinion within the EU. His case would be all the stronger if he made a nod to Britain's outlier status, rather than presenting himself as Turkey's angry champion.

THE PRESS pack travelling with David Cameron in America seems pretty confident that his first prime ministerial visit to Washington DC went well. The judgement of those on the ground is worth listening to: even allowing for spin it is usually pretty obvious to reporters when a leader's entourage are happy, relieved or anxious. And the team with Mr Cameron are happy with the welcome he received from President Obama, says George Parker of the Financial Times:

David Cameron was still glowing last night after his three-hour bonding session with President Obama, who took him on a tour of his personal apartments in the White House as well as the garden: a far cry from the short “brush by” offered to him when he was still leader of the opposition.

In spite of all the pre-meeting efforts to dampen expectations - Cameron wrote that he was not bothered by the “baubles” of the “special relationship” - his team were immediately anxious to tell journalists how well the meeting had gone.

Mr Cameron and Mr Obama are both good at easy charm, and their joint press conference contains all the bonhomie and familiarity a visiting British prime minister could wish for. Gone are the reports of Gordon Brown pursuing Mr Obama through a kitchen in the hopes of a meeting, or Downing Street officials asking five times for some face time with the president. The pair played well off their similarities as forty-something parents of young children who have found themselves in gigantic jobs:

PRIME MINISTER CAMERON:  Well, first of all, can I thank you, Mr. President, for welcoming me so warmly to the White House today.  Thank you for the meeting, for the lunch that we had, and also for the tour of part of your home.  I have to say, I was most impressed by how tidy your children’s bedrooms were.  (Laughter.)  And I think if the President of the United States can get his children to tidy their bedrooms, then the British Prime Minister, it’s about time --

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  You can do it.

PRIME MINISTER CAMERON:  -- he did exactly the same thing.  (Laughter.) 

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  You have to give them some notice, that’s the only thing.  (Laughter.)

PRIME MINISTER CAMERON:  Right.  Well, they’ve got notice --

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Tell them the Prime Minister is coming.  (Laughter.)

PRIME MINISTER CAMERON:  They should be in bed by now, but if they’re not they have notice.  (Laughter.)

But I must admit, from a distance of several thousand miles, I am not so sanguine. For much of his visit, Mr Cameron was forced to answer painful questions about BP, the oil giant. American senators and reporters peppered him with questions about whether the oil giant (already on the rack for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill) played any role in the 2009 release from a British prison of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 above the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.

Mr Cameron tried to play a straight bat. He repeatedly said Scotland’s devolved executive was to blame for the release. He said it had been “completely wrong” to release Mr Megrahi on the “compassionate” grounds that he was close to death from cancer (though Mr Megrahi remains alive in his native Libya, almost a year later), and noted that this had been his position long before he won the election. He confirmed that Britain's top civil servant, the cabinet secretary, had been asked to go through government papers to see if any more light could be shed on the release. He was sensitive to the depth of anger in America over the case, calling Mr Megrahi "the biggest mass murderer in British history". Yet he was careful to defend BP as a company, saying at one point: "let us not confuse the oil spill with the Libyan bomber." He said he was not sure a British government enquiry could do much good, given that he already knew the release had been a "bad decision".

Mr Obama played it straight, too. Though his administration appears to favour fuller investigation of the case, he did not call Mr Cameron on this. As the BBC's man in the travelling pack, James Landale, put it:

Messrs Cameron and Obama had clearly agreed a joint strategy to deal with the Lockerbie row. The PM promised that Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, would scurry around looking for any more information. And the president declined to push for a UK government inquiry. Not a bad strategy. Let's see if it works.

And yet, and yet. The combination of BP and the Lockerbie case is a potentially ghastly one. BP has already confirmed that one of its staff, a senior ex-British spook who had worked on the Libya dossier, later lobbied the British government in general terms over an agreement to transfer prisoners back to Libya. But BP denies lobbying directly for Mr Megrahi to be released. Pressed on this, Mr Cameron gave what can most kindly be described as a very careful reply:

You asked about the role of BP.  I mean, the role of BP and any lobbying they might have done is an issue for BP and an issue that they should explain themselves.  I mean, the decision to release Megrahi, though, was a decision made by the Scottish government, and I haven’t seen anything to suggest that the Scottish government were in any way swayed by BP.  They were swayed by their considerations about the need to release him on compassionate grounds -- grounds that I think were completely wrong.  I don’t think it’s right to show compassion to a mass murderer like that. I think it was wrong. 

But it’s a matter for BP to answer what activities they undertook.  But the Scottish government made its decision and has explained its decision on many occasions and I’m sure will explain it again.

For their part, the Scottish executive (the devolved government of Scotland) are coming out fighting, saying they had no truck with lobbying that linked Libyan prisoners to commercial contracts for oil firms, but that Mr Megrahi had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, which changed his case into a compassionate one.

The problem is that four senators, at least, have the bit between their teeth now and every reason to keep hammering this. One of them, Charles Schumer of New York, told CNN after meeting Mr Cameron:

"Our request for an independent investigation was still on the table," said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. "It was not case-closed."

CNN adds:

The four senators said that questions over how al Megrahi could have survived almost a year and whether BP exerted influence in the case need to be answered. The Scottish government has insisted that BP never lobbied to free al Megrahi.

"We say there is a lot of circumstantial evidence -- no smoking gun -- strong circumstantial evidence, that something wrong happened here," Schumer said. "We don't think all the facts have come out."

Schumer was joined by fellow New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez. All are Democrats.

The senators released a letter Monday calling for the United Kingdom to launch a full investigation into al Megrahi's release and whether BP was involved.

Here is Mr Menendez, talking to The Cable, a blog of Foreign Policy magazine:

"This is beyond our bilateral relationship with the British; this is a question of what messaging do we want to send to terrorists. Do we want to tell them you can kill Americans and others and at the end of the day still get out of jail? That's the wrong message."

The senators would like to call British officials as witnesses at their hearing, set for next week. It is not clear if that is going to happen. But I have a hunch this story is not over. Even if the Scottish executive is vindicated by documents that are released, and Mr Megrahi's release really was triggered by his cancer diagnosis, there could be more than enough material about ties between Libya, BP and the last British government to make the "special relationship" a bit less special, in American eyes.

I CANNOT put my finger on it. But there is something about this Coalition government that does not quite make sense to me.

I can see that the leadership of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties agree on really rather a lot. They agree that the last Labour government failed to fix some big problems, partly because it was over-wedded to solutions involving central government diktats and lots of state spending.

They are sensitive to the fact that the role of the state is a potential dividing line between their parties. The Tory party, broadly, has lots of members who believe the state is a big part of the problem, most of the time. The Liberal Democratic party is also made up of different factions. One faction, which includes the party's leader Nick Clegg, is sceptical that the state is always a terribly efficient machine for fixing big problems. But another important faction tends to think that social justice can only be achieved by spending hefty amounts of public money.

Unsurprisingly, lots of figures in the magic circle of the Coalition are getting good at coming up with solutions for problems, or at least analyses of problems, that bridge (or at least paper over) that divide. They offer pragmatic, often rather modest sounding proposals, with a bit of a market tinge (lots of talk about consumer choice and people power). These modest proposals have the great virtue of not exposing philosophical rifts between the right and left fringes of the Coalition. My problem is this: I have the strange hunch that the people advancing these proposals do not believe they will do the job. I detect an odd whiff of phoney war in the air.

This is a blog entry, not a finished article, so bear with me as I try to grope my way through this. Perhaps a concrete example will help. Actually, readers will have to bear with me a second time. Because this is a blog posting, I am going to use quite long quotes: just sometimes, I want to use the internet's flexibility to explore ideas in some detail. I really want to know what you think.

So. This morning saw the release of a new policy pamphlet by Miriam Gross on the teaching of reading in British schools. There is no disguising where the pamphlet comes from in the bafflingly ideological culture war that has raged for decades between traditionalist fans of phonics (ie, learning to read by spelling out words, letter by letter), and those on the left who think that is too didactic and bossy, and prefer allowing children to absorb whole words organically.

The pamphlet was published by the Centre for Policy Studies, a centre-right outfit, and given a plug in the Daily Telegraph by Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor of London.

Ms Gross identifies a big problem. As she writes:

Over a third of all children who leave London’s state primary
schools at the age of 11 still have difficulties with reading (even
though they have passed national tests) and about 5% can
hardly read at all. About 20% of pupils leave secondary schools
without being able to read or write with confidence.”

She identifies a culprit:

Since the 1960s, when the “progressive education” movement
pioneered in America was embraced by the British school
system, the first years of school have been seen mainly as a
time for play, creativity and self expression. Requiring children
to memorise facts and figures has come to be regarded, not as
enlarging a child’s world, but as stifling his or her imagination...

... when the tenets of progressive education were adopted by
the state system in the 1960s, learning letters and sounds was
partially abandoned in favour of more play-based, less
structured techniques. Phonics was thought to be too
unimaginative, didactic and boring – it prevented children from
engaging “meaningfully” with the words they were reading.

She acknowledges that Tony Blair was persuaded of the case to teach phonics alongside "whole word" learning, but argues that the Labour government's instructions to teachers were widely resisted, so that phonics were not given a proper shot.

She challenges an argument advanced by some in the education world, that reading standards are poor in London because so many children speak another language at home (EAL pupils, in the jargon). She quotes school bosses who think immigration is not the biggest problem:

“Immigration is often an excuse for low achieving schools in
urban areas with a high ethnic minority intake”, says Sir Michael
Wilshaw, the head of Mossbourne Community Academy.
Literacy levels of EAL children are low, he firmly believes,
because they are being taught by teachers who have low
expectations of their true potential.
“These children are usually keen to learn and
extremely well behaved. My experience of
Mossbourne and similar schools is that if early and
effective literacy programmes are put into place,
EAL pupils make rapid progress."

In the most political passage in the pamphlet, Ms Gross argues:

There is in fact a great deal of evidence (from reports by the
government and by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, for
example) to show that it is white working-class children who
have the most intractable reading difficulties. Unlike most
immigrant parents, who are very keen on their children receiving
a good education even if they themselves speak very little
English, white working-class parents often seem to be
indifferent to their children’s education.

Alas, she concludes, central government diktats have never worked before, so there is no reason to think they will now:

Given that the education establishment is hostile to
reforms of the kind that are needed, it is very unlikely that yet
more diktats from central government will bring about the
required transformation.

Her big idea, endorsed by Mayor Johnson, is to offer schools an incentive to seek out good ways to teach reading:

One step towards achieving this might be to initiate an annual
contest among London primary schools – a kind of Booker Prize
for literacy, perhaps sponsored by one of the large corporations
which have been so vehement in complaining about the poor
skills of school leavers. The competing schools would be
independently assessed culminating in three winners and 10
runners-up. Every child and all the relevant teachers in the
winning schools would then be given an award at a large prizegiving
party. The winning schools would get a substantial cash
award to be spent entirely at the head teachers discretion. The
teaching methods of the successful schools – as well as the
conduct and enthusiasm of children – would be analysed so that
teachers and parents alike can see which approach works best.

Now compare that to this section from a speech that Nick Clegg gave last Friday, playing down the idea that the Coalition is divided between those who believe in a big state and those who think small:

Too often, political philosophy is boiled down into these kind of binary questions: are you pro-state or anti-state? Do you want a small state or big state? The answer to these questions is then used a proxy for a political position.

To be on the left, in this analysis, is to be in favour of a big state, high public spending and high taxation to pay the bills. To be on the right is to believe the opposite to all of these.

For liberals, the questions are essentially meaningless. A liberal state cannot be equated to a particular level of government spending as a proportion of GDP. It is perfectly possible to have a state that spends small amounts on a highly authoritarian state apparatus. It is perfectly possible to have a state that spends large amounts in a manner that is liberating.

Take education. A centralized, dictat-driven school system with no diversity, no choice, and no flexibility would be illiberal no matter how much it cost. A system that allows for choice, freedom, and diversity is a liberal one – with the price tag a separate question.

Michael Gove’s plans to allow for greater autonomy in schools, along with more localized diversity of provision and more choice for parents is a quintessentially liberal approach. This is an area where the state needs to back off.

But the education system is also failing to promote social mobility. Too often, poor children end up with a poor education, compared to their more affluent peers. Here is an area where the state does need to intervene more aggressively, by providing a targeted pupil premium, giving more power to the most disadvantaged children in the system.

So: less state intervention in the running of schools, more state intervention in promoting social mobility. Is the state getting smaller or bigger in this scenario? To my mind, it’s a ludicrous way of framing the question. The liberal test for any form of state intervention is whether it liberates and empowers people.

It is a clever argument, and you can see its appeal to the deputy prime minister.

Both these arguments about how to fix schools, from Miriam Gross and from Nick Clegg, are based on the idea that with the right, relatively modest financial incentives, a problem can be fixed without central government diktats. Their solutions are essentially about giving parents and schools nudges to make good choices, through judicious injections of money (a prize for reading in London schools, pupil premiums to encourage successful schools to enroll children from the poorest homes). That is good politics for the coalition. It is good politics for an age of austerity where there is no money to spend on flashy new plans.

But here is the thing. I don't think Miriam Gross or Nick Clegg can completely believe what they are saying. Because parental choice would surely struggle to fix the case of those working class white children that Ms Gross writes about, whose parents do not care about their education. I think—and this is very rude of me because I have never met Ms Gross nor asked her what she thinks—that she might secretly believe that something much more revolutionary is needed, involving a much more frontal assault on opponents of change in the teaching profession.

Equally, and this is presumptuous of me because I have not asked him, I do not see how Nick Clegg believes that failing schools can be fixed by the state simply being less bossy and "backing off", while attaching a premium to poor pupils. I can see how a pupil premium might persuade an excellent school to take in a child from a troubled background. But what if that child's parents do not seek a place at that excellent school, either because education is not a high priority, or because they prefer to send their child to their nearest local school, even if it is considered to be failing by central government inspectors?

I have a hunch that Mr Clegg and the Coalition leadership actually think that failing schools have to be closed down, and to do that the central government will in some way have to launch some sort of more frontal assault on the power of local authorities.

In other words, the very modesty and pragmatism of all these ideas is fishy, to me. I have a hunch that this Coalition is pulling its punches, for now. But can it last?

TO NICK Clegg's old school, Westminster, for the summer party of Centre Forum, favourite think tank of the "small state" wing of the Liberal Democratic party. The deputy prime minister gave a cheery speech about the joys of being in coalition, throwing in the detail that David Cameron texted him during the World Cup finals to ask how the Clegg household's domestic coalition was surviving a Dutch-Spanish clash (Mr Clegg's mother is Dutch while his wife is Spanish). Mr Clegg said he had solved the problem in a quintessentially LibDem way: he abandoned the Dutch at half time in protest at their behaviour and began supporting the Spanish. It all felt very matey and "new politics", down to the clutch of Conservative cabinet ministers and MPs mingling with their LibDem colleagues on the lawns of College Garden.

There is something about any summer gathering in an English garden that is always a bit reminiscent of a wedding: the men in pale suits, women trying not to get their heels stuck in the grass, the dangers of drinking too much white wine in the sun (and the marquee in case of rain).

The same comparisons came to every mind when Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron appeared for their first press conference together in the gardens of 10 Downing Street back in May, and the press as one compared them to a gay couple getting hitched.

Last night, though, it was clear that this marriage faces a bumpy few years. In his brief speech, Mr Clegg said he was looking forwards to the "second half of this government." After that three year mark, he suggested, the spending cuts and other economic measures unveiled by the coalition would be "bearing fruit", while new financial regulations would be delivering a much needed "rebalancing" of the British economy.

His public cheeriness chimed with what LibDem insiders say in private, which is that the party is braced for brutal punishment from the voters once spending cuts bite. The LibDem leadership around Nick Clegg is braced for several mid-term bloody noses, whether at elections to the Scottish parliament, local and regional polls or the next European Parliament elections.

Just as bankers and businesses fear a double dip recession, the LibDem leaders seem to be counting on their political fortunes to trace a deep V shape in the next few years, as they are punished for siding with the Conservatives. By 2015 (when this government will have to hold an election), the leadership is "convinced" the economy will be picking up and they will get the credit for tough deficit cuts early on.

Conservative members of the coalition share the same fears about the short and medium term: that shared analysis bodes well for their new union. One Tory talks of "mid-term horrors". Another Tory notes that his Lib Dem colleagues are "taking much more flak than we are" from the press and the Labour party, when it comes to cuts. The same Conservative argues that the coalition is strengthened not weakened by this asymmetric pounding. Labour were behaving as if the LibDems belonged to them, he suggested, and the LibDems have noticed this. Labour's rage was rather inept, he felt: it would be more clever for Labour to criticise the LibDems more in sorrow than in anger.

And yet on another important front, the analysis of LibDem and Tory insiders seems to differ. I don't want to put too much stress on this, as my sample sizes are still rather small. But so far, when I speak to Conservatives they cite the prospect of a mid-term mauling as the big test facing their coalition. But LibDems have been quicker to say that the real test for their partnership—perhaps the only test that really matters to rank and file LibDems—is whether the government can deliver changes to the voting system, notably the "Alternative Vote" system that most people believe should deliver more seats for a third party like theirs.

Assuming this coalition does last till 2015, all these questions should have been answered one way or the other: spending cuts will either have salvaged the public finances or plunged the country into a depression. The country either will or will not have voted by referendum for the new voting system that matters so much to LibDems (and so little to most ordinary voters). There is no guarantee the coalition will last nearly so long, of course. But if one message came away from last night's gathering, it was that both parties in the government assume things will get worse before they get better: that is itself useful information. It gives them both a strong incentive to make their shotgun marriage last at least five years.

GIVEN that the coalition government is going to be announcing many cuts, ministers are going to have to get better at explaining their plans.

Michael Gove, the education secretary, spent what seemed like hours apologising to the House of Commons yesterday for the bungled announcement of one of the government's first big moves: the cancellation of the £55 billion Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, a Labour government scheme to rebuild or smarten up thousands of secondary schools. Mr Gove apologised "unreservedly" for 25 mistakes in a list issued by his department, spelling out which projects would still go ahead, which were for the chop and which were still being reviewed. He expressed contrition to MPs cross that they learned the fate of school projects in their constituencies from the press. He also offered to apologise in person to a dozen or so schools which were initially told their building works would go ahead, when in fact they also face the axe.

Mr Gove earned some grudging praise for his swift apologies: many ministers would have been tempted to pin the blame on officials. Today, some reporters argue that Mr Gove is still in political trouble, noting that even some Tory MPs are up in arms (one is threatening to bring a bunch of schoolchildren to Westminster to protest), and that he could face legal challenges from disgruntled schools, local authorities and building firms. But such protests were surely anticipated by Mr Gove and his cabinet colleagues.

I wonder if the real lessons to learn may be rather different.

For starters, keep the message simple. Mr Gove has repeatedly said he is dropping the BSF programme because it was wastefully bureaucratic. That message has been dutifully repeated by MPs and ministers from the coalition. But does that mean that Mr Gove is cutting all money for new school building or repairs? His own colleagues appear confused, and keen to reassure voters that some money is still available for new classrooms.

Even John Redwood, a former cabinet minister and right-wing budget hawk, allowed himself a yelp of dismay on his blog this morning, urging Mr Gove to make clear that some money would still be available for school repairs:

In the statement I heard Michael Gove make he was clear in saying he was cancelling the approach of Building Schools for the future because it was an expensive, long winded and inefficient way of building schools. He did not say he was cancelling all new schools building. Indeed, if he is right and he can save substantial sums on the box ticking detailed regulatory approach of the old programme this could leave him with more money to spend on bricks and mortar. This message has got entirely lost in the broadcasts and newspaper stories about cuts, leading most people to think there will now be no new schools.

This needs turning round as quickly as possible. According to the figures the Coalition government is going to spend as much on new capital projects as the outgoing Labour government. In that case they might end up building more schools than Labour for the same amount of money if Mr Gove is right about how to do it more cheaply.

The second big lesson, surely, is that in an age of austerity the government will have to work hard to defend not just its cuts, but also the money that it still intends spending. In this case, I was struck by the way that Britain's local press covered the story. Understandably, much of the coverage was along the lines of: "Full List of 82 Yorkshire schools hit by Gove's Axe", complete with anguished quotes from locals.

But there were also sharp comments here and there that Mr Gove still seemed to have money available for his flagship policy: the "free schools" programme inspired by reforms in Sweden: this would allow interested groups, involving parents, local teachers or business types to establish new schools outside local authority control.

The Western Morning News quotes a Liberal Democrat county councillor complaining about the cancellation of work on a school in the market town of Tiverton. According to the councillor:

"We're not after a trendy free school...That's a pricey fad for London's chattering classes. We simply need a school building fit for our students and teachers to thrive. It should have been an easy choice for Mr Gove but he has flunked the Tiverton test."

Supporters of the free schools plan fret that the public has the impression that this policy is all about building lots of brand new schools. Instead, says one leading think-tanker, the most important bit of the "free schools" policy involves making it easier to close down failing schools, and replace them with completely new academies (rather than watch local authorities endlessly propping up failing schools, as happens now). In many cases, says the think-tanker, those "free schools" would be opened in existing school buildings.

The real point, surely, is that an age of austerity is about priorities, and explaining those priorities.

Labour education policy was too often about shiny new buildings and whizzy high-speed internet connections and laptops. As I understand it, Mr Gove thinks that the quality of teaching is what really counts, and he is right. Clearly some schools struggle to teach in clapped-out old temporary buildings that bake in summer and freeze in winter. But teachers are the key.

I admit I am a bit of a fogey on this front: I was lucky enough to have outstanding teachers at a series of schools with incredibly antiquated facilities. One was based in a crowded, converted townhouse with no playground and no canteen (we ate our packed lunches at our desks, spilling crumbs into our exercise books). Another had about three of the very first computers in a back room somewhere (BBC computers, for British readers of a certain age). It did not matter a bit: we had books, and great teachers.

Mr Gove says he is scrapping the BSF programme because it is "bureaucratic". That makes it sound as though he would like to spend the same amount of money on school building work, if he could find a better way of doing so. If that is true (as some of his colleagues seem to hope), he might as well say so clearly, and damp down some of the voter outrage.

Alternatively, if he is in fact saying he has different priorities in an age of limited cash, and that he would rather channel investment towards better teaching through increased school choice, he should say that and explain why.