Reading today's programme for coalition government feels like long walk through some very mixed terrain - in typically British weather. One moment the turf is springy underfoot, the sky is clear and you have real momentum. The brisk language, short sentences and firm commitments in the section on civil liberties gladden the heart, after so many years of Big Brother Labour. For localists and quango-haters there's some nice fresh air: more local decision-making, an end to Standards Boards, "regionalisation" and Comprehensive Area Assessments. Then a few clouds of uncertainty - will Local Enterprise Partnerships just be RDAs under a new name? A few spots of rain turn to a heavy shower as you hit the section on Equalities. It's back to Harriet Harperson country: gender equality on boards of listed companies, gender balance in the "early years workforce"; schemes for "Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic" business start-ups - how patronising and tokenistic is that?
The skies clear again when you get to education: plenty of firm commitments for school freedom - but then the path seems to narrow on faith schools, required to be more 'inclusive' in their admissions. Welfare reform seems promising at first but then gets a bit overgrown:
"We will investigate how to simplify the benefits
system in order to improve incentives to work." Plenty of long grass there, in an area where urgent action is needed.
As to the tax section - over which much Conservative ink has been spilt in the press this week - well, it's very short on detail. It gives George Osborne room to choose the path to growth: lower corporation tax, increasing personal allowances to incentivise the low-paid, tax breaks for entrepreneurs. But if he doesn't keep a grip, there's enough small print for some of his colleagues to steer Britain into the muddy ground of redistribution, where growth is stagnant and opportunity gets trampled underfoot.
Ultimately, will coalition life be an interesting walk or just a dispiriting ramble ? If George - and Michael, and Iain - keep a very firm hold of the map, then we might just about get there. But if I were you, I'd take a very stout pair of boots, plenty of rations - and a tent. Because you might not get home before nightfall.
