This fuss over the ‘landmine’ of the Equality Act is completely ridiculous. The Act doesn’t require anything beyond a consideration of how government actions impact on people – which frankly is something I would expect any halfway competent politician to do anyway.

I think there is an argument to be had about the way that governments expect to pull a lever and have a wide-spread social effect – but it’s not specifically that Act.

More widely, I think the furore shows us something instructive about how Labour and the Conservatives approach society.

Labour is all about phrasing , not delivering , and just showing that they ‘care’; and requiring; and splitting people up into discrete little groups so politicians can try to target what are effectively bribes at them.

Conservatives are about making sure that overall, people have the opportunity to make of themselves whatever they want. It’s not about putting people in boxes – it’s about making sure that they all have equal opportunity to break out of whatever box they have been abandoned to by Labour.

The Emergency Budget was – let’s face it – tough on everyone. It had to be. The problem is not that our taxes were too low, but that our spending was too high.

There are a few things that strike me as obvious but which clearly aren’t for some – firstly, that to make work pay you have to make sure that living on benefits becomes less attractive: that doesn’t mean punitive, but it does mean, for example, that lavish housing benefits far beyond what people in good jobs can afford have to go. Secondly, that of course when you cut spending, those who use public services the most would be disproportionately affected if you make no other changes to reform those public services in order that they deliver better (this is the great argument that Betapolitics has been advancing in recent weeks). And finally, that when bodies like the IFS have considered fairness and progressiveness, they only look at what the state pays out. Why don’t they look at the opportunities for growth, for better jobs, for more social mobility as well?

It isn’t all about the state. It is all about society.

Once again the idea of not changing the clocks, changing them permanently, doubling the change or moving to some other time zone rears its head…

I don’t see that it makes much difference, really – you get the same number of hours of light and dark no matter what your watch says. But if it’s a serious discussion we’re after, here’s a thought – why not, for example, say to the Scottish Executive that England would benefit from using BST all year round, but Scotland could decide for itself whether or not to use it?

Or alternatively, if the change isn’t made, schools and offices in some places could – shock, horror – change their own working hours so that they had more light in the mornings, or whatever it is they want?

There’s no real reason for everyone to go from home to work or school for 9am, just as there’s no real reason for everyone to leave at the same time.

You could have micro-localism, where businesses, schools etc decided to start (for example) at 11am in the winter, and at 7 am in summer.

I think I like that idea a lot better than once again repeating the arguments from the 1970s…

I’m a bit late to this but – why on earth all the ruckus about ‘free’ milk?

Firstly, it’s not free. Secondly, ministers have been asked to suggest ways to reduce costs and get better value out of taxpayers’ money. And thirdly, ‘because David Cameron isn’t keen on the idea’ is not a good enough reason not to do something.

The process by which we should be deciding what to spend money on goes like this:

1)      Is this an absolute life or death necessity? Is it something the government MUST provide, is it something that’s a nice thing to have, will someone else provide it better or cheaper?

2)      What are the benefits? Do sufficient people benefit?

3)      Can we achieve the same thing cheaper? OR can we achieve the same thing in a different way?

I’ve discussed before (YEARS ago) why we need to re-examine what the state decides to do with taxpayers’ money. But more than that, given the dire circumstances we are in, I think this government has an obligation to do this from the bottom up – so, not “What can we cut?” but rather “What must we maintain?”

Delightfully, the government seemed to want to try that when it launched the consultations on public spending. But rather disappointingly, every suggestion seems to have been met with either ‘we’re already planning that’ or ‘we aren’t interested in doing that’ so I do wonder what the point was.

As with this furore over school milk, if this government is going to live up to its rhetoric on devolving power, it needs to make some decisions about how it handles media coverage.

Either it cannot stand a word of criticism, in which case they might as well ditch localism, the Big Society, reducing the tax burden and empowering citizens. Or it’s willing and able to take a bit of a battering because it believes in those things. But it can’t have it both ways, and currently it is being damaged by being willing to float radical ideas but then unwilling to discuss them when a newspaper gets in a fankle about them.

There are discussions all over the place about the threats to the Coalition itself. All anyone I speak to wants to discuss is how long it will last. Labour seem to think if they are nasty enough to the Lib Dems, they will eventually see ’sense’ and return to the fold.

So what are the ingredients for the Coalition to last? I’ve already discussed the structural and emotional elements, but there’s something else – just enough dissent from the memberships of both parties, and just enough uncomfortable concessions on policy from the leaderships of both parties, and just enough disagreement between everyone to ensure that voters still see the two parties as separate entities.

Hence, for example, Nick Clegg’s declaration that the war in Iraq was illegal. Hence the public discussions over a graduate tax. Hence as well Simon Hughes’ comments that David Cameron was only floating the idea of changes to the way council tenancies work.

This is all to the good. Firstly it is important that discussions be had on the big issues of the day – I don’t want a bunch of sheep who don’t think about anything, I want politicians who are prepared to be radical and argue their case. And secondly, it’s important that difficult decisions are seen to be taken in the public interest.

So like Goldilocks and her porridge, there needs to be not too much but also not too little friction so that voters understand that the Coalition is there to change things, there to argue the case for their own views, but – crucially – willing and able to come to the right decisions in the national interest.

It won’t always be comfortable – even Goldilocks burned her mouth – but in the end, we need to acknowledge that not everyone is right all the time, and it’s better to come to a conclusion after frank discussions than to steamroller through with no thought for the consequences.

You never know. Publishing information that is funded by the taxpayer probably isn’t the end of the world. If it is, then you’re probably doing something wrong.

In my slightly geeky way, I was looking through the Communities and Local Government website, trying to find the speech made by Grant Shapps describing Local Housing Trusts. I also found a speech he made at the Housing Design Awards ceremony a couple of weeks ago, which I thought I’d read as I assumed there would be some interesting stuff about the LHTs.

I have no idea if there was anything useful in the speech, because halfway through, there’s a square bracket and “political content removed” – so I can’t read the whole thing.

Why not? Aren’t we capable of distinguishing between blatant electioneering and fact? Or are we likely to be bamboozled by the politics?

If – as they should – departments are going to publish speeches and articles, they need to accept that a) we should have the full text and b) politicians are political as well as being managers.

Local councils are leading the way in publishing data – Eric Pickles has encouraged that  all council spending over £500 be made public, and hurrah for him for his announcement that his government department will be doing the same (I’ve never understood the £25,000 lower limit for central government).  Some councils will publish everything, there are some councils which publish proper detail about what the councillors are up to, and there is one (at least, possibly more) which publishes things like energy consumption as well. This is all great stuff.

I was at a Policy Exchange event on Tuesday (more on that later) where Greg Clark outlined some thoughts on his role as Minister for Decentralisation. His three requirements were a right to information, a right to challenge and a wholesale change in the attitude of central government.

Ministers and secretaries of state should start by making sure that all of their on the record utterances are accessible to all. Politics isn’t dangerous. Civil servants shouldn’t be so timid – ministers should be able to explain what they are doing and why. Governments ARE political – that is why we vote – and it is unquestionably a good thing that we know what they are up to.