Feeding the brain

In my latest Sutton Trust blog, I consider  the evidence behind moves to provide universal free school meals for 5-7 year-olds

When I worked for Tony Blair, I had the chance to work with Jamie Oliver in helping deliver his great plans to transform the quality of school lunches.

The combination of tough nutritional standards, better kitchens and trained chefs in schools helped bring about a radical improvement in the quality of what young people were eating. We also laid the groundwork for teaching cooking in schools, not just talking about the texture of food. The School Food Trust – now the Children’s Food Trust – helped promote the changes.

 

So, I have no illusions about the importance of nutritious food for children of all ages. It has to be part of the drive to improve diet and reduce obesity in schools. And I applaud the moves made by Michael Gove to improve school meals, following the report by the Leon restaurant founders Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent.

 

But to what extent can we make greater claims about the value of school meals? Many heads have seen it as important to provide good lunches to keep children in school at lunchtime. There is no doubt that an orderly canteen – and I’ve eaten in my share of good school dining halls in recent years – is often a mark of good school discipline and effective leadership.

 

More recently, there has been a growing movement towards providing free school meals for all children regardless of income. Last week, the Liberal Democrats announced that this would be universal entitlement for all 5-7 year-olds from September 2014, with a £600m a year price tag.

In making the announcement, ministers cited a research study by NatCen based on trials between 2009 and 2011 in Durham, Newham and Wolverhampton which showed that where there was a universal entitlement in primary schools, there was improved take up of meals among all pupils, more hot meals were eaten, and fewer crisps were consumed.

 

Perhaps more interestingly, Natcen concluded that “the universal pilot had a significant positive impact on attainment for primary school pupils at Key Stages 1 and 2, with pupils in the pilot areas making between four and eight weeks’ more progress than similar pupils in comparison areas.”

 

Moreover, these improvements were strongest among those from less affluent families.

Critics of the universal entitlement have questioned how these improvements materialised because, perhaps surprisingly, there was no improvement in pupil absence levels in the pilot schools. But supporters argue that this means that the greater productivity must be down to the daily dinners.

 

What has perhaps been less remarked upon is the extent to which the pilots – again, not surprisingly – had substantial deadweight costs. They were subsidising parents who had previously been happy to pay for school meals, as well as attracting new diners. The cost was £220 per primary pupil each year.

 

Natcen says this deadweight amounted to £3.8 million in one area (around one-third of the total running costs), £7.6 million in the other (just under half of the total running costs). Applied to a national programme, this could mean £250m of £600m in deadweight costs. Again, that may be a price worth paying if it delivers good results.

 

So, what of the Toolkit test – how does the free meals policy score compared to other interventions?

Natcen notes on page 146 of its report that the universal entitlement was better value than reading recovery programmes but poorer value than the daily literacy hour or than Jamie Oliver’s Feed Me Better campaign.

 

A comparison with interventions highlighted in the Sutton Trust/Education Endowment Foundation Toolkit suggests that good pupil feedback could add 8 months' learning with costs of up to £170 per pupil per year while peer to peer tutoring could add 6 months at similar cost. However, one to one tuition could cost £1200 per pupil and add 5 months’ learning.

 

The truth is that universal school meals may make some impact on attainment, but seem likely to do a lot more for diet and socialisation in school. Going back to Jamie’s crusade, I couldn’t argue against that, so long as the kitchens are in place and the school chefs trained.

 

But there is always going to be a challenge ensuring that limited funds are spent as effectively as possible. And the challenge is as great in Whitehall as it is at the chalkface.

Autumn challenges for Clegg and Miliband

As he contemplates the next parliamentary year from the comfort of his Spanish holiday, the Deputy Prime Minister will have plenty of time to consider the perils of coalition. With a stand-off between Nick Clegg and David Cameron over constitutional reform, it is becoming increasingly clear how little the Liberal Democrats have gained from being in power with the Conservatives.

There are two reasons why this is so. First, Clegg failed to secure unconditional support for key policies from Cameron. He won a referendum on the alternative vote, but had no guarantees that his position would not be trashed by his coalition colleagues. Instead of just having a referendum, he should have made boundary changes conditional on AV being passed, and put both on the ballot. Now, rather belatedly, he has chosen to link the constituency carve-up to the failure to get Lords reform through. It looks petulant done this way, and does Clegg few favours in the eyes of voters.

But the second failing was not to insist that the Conservative Parliamentary Party be asked to endorse the coalition agreement in the same way that Clegg gained the support of his Liberal Democrat colleagues. This has allowed many Tories to take a pick-and-mix approach to its measures. This was, of course, as much Cameron's failure rather than Clegg's, but it was a weakness of the whole arrangement.

Of course, a bigger problem for Clegg is that on measures where his party gained seats, notably tuition fees, he has accepted a position the exact opposite to that which he argued for during the election. The concessions on repayment thresholds may make the loans more attractive to some, but have made the finances of higher education less sustainable. Clegg would have been better insisting on a lower cap on fees which might have appeared less daunting to potential students in the future.

Where the Lib Dems claim some credit for policies delivered - the pupil premium and a higher tax threshold - it can plausibly be argued that they are delivering policies that most Tories willingly embrace. The pupil premium also featured in the Conservative manifesto. But. so far, its failure to link with a national funding formula and to recalibrate the much higher premium inherited from Labour, means that it is often being used to mitigate cuts elsewhere in the budget rather than for proven measures that could tackle achievement and aspirations among target students.

If he is to regain some of the credibility he enjoyed before the last election, Clegg needs to be ready to revisit the coalition agreement in the autumn, and establish some key priorities for the second phase of the government, some of which should reflect the reality that George Osborne's economic policies are not working as intended. Top of the list should be a serious investment package in national infrastructure, one that starts to have a real impact on the economy, and a stimulus to service industries that pump money directly into the UK economy, perhaps through targeted VAT reductions for tourism-related industries or a strong incentive package to boost UK education. He should also try to put a halt in both cases to the Home Office's unstinting efforts to deter tourists and students from spending their money in Britain.

Meanwhile, Ed Miliband has benefited from the coalition's woes, but still lacks a strong enough policy on the economy and taxation. His challenge for the autumn is to put flesh on a policy that goes further than heckling 'I told you so' at the Chancellor. Ed Balls has argued for VAT cuts, but they need to be targeted on services and industries that are largely home-grown if they are to improve growth, not add to the trade deficit. Stella Creasy has rightly argued for a wholesale bottom up review of all public spending, with value for money at the heart of it. And the focus on any extra investment must be on infrastructure - both small-scale, such as restoring individual school capital budgets, and large-scale, including sorting out London's airports. Miliband has gained stature in the last year: this autumn is the time he needs to translate that into economic credibility.

Clegg's premium needs a harder edge to succeed

Last week Nick Clegg renewed his coalition marriage vows with David Cameron at a tractor factor in Essex. Today, the Deputy Prime Minister has reaffirmed his faith in the pupil premium as a great engine of social mobility, at a primary academy is Islington. Nobody could seriously oppose the pupil premium - indeed, it was as much part of the Conservatives' 2010 manifesto as it was that of the Liberal Democrats - but one can reasonably ask how much difference it will really make.

The pupil premium was supposed to rise to as much as £2500 per pupil by 2015, though changes to its calculation and topslicing mean it will probably be nearer £1200 - there will only be £2.5bn available in the last year of this Parliament and £1.25bn is being spent when it is only £600 in the next school year. Yet, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out, extra funding in the current system attached to deprived pupils amounts to £2000 in primary schools and £3000 in secondary schools, funding almost double that attached to non-deprived pupils, on average. And there are still huge variations in performance between them. As Clegg himself pointed out in his speech,  

There are now 440 secondary schools - one in five - where disadvantaged pupils are doing better in their GCSEs than the national average for all children.

What that suggests is that they perform worse in four in five schools, despite their existing £2000-£3000 premium. Clegg has sort of recognised that a big problem with the premium is the lack of levers to ensure that schools use it to improve teaching for disadvantaged youngsters. So he has announced details of summer school funding and a sponsored competition for the best ideas on using the new premium. Summer schools were an idea of David Blunkett's first year in government - indeed they may even have been his first initiative - and while they had some positive results, they were no panacea. The contest may spur some good ideas, but it is still likely to leave most schools using the premium to plug the gaps left by the Government's cuts in the rest of the school budgets: again, the IFS has shown that around three-quarters of primary schools and 90% of secondary schools are seeing real terms cuts, though with lower salary inflation, the figure falls to 55% of primaries and 70% of secondaries. An NAHT survey recently found similar concerns.

Clegg says that Ofsted will be reporting on how the pupil premium is used. But unless there is a link between the premium and some narrowing of the gap in Key Stage 2 or GCSE results for poorer pupils (with no loss of performance at the top end) then the pupil premium is unlikely to achieve much at all in the majority of schools and for most disadvantaged pupils. The Government already publishes a lot of this data: why not say that a significant proportion of the premium after three years is dependent on better results for those from poorer backgrounds? The premium needs such a harder edge if it is to succeed.

Clegg should demand real investment for renewing those vows

With Francois Hollande elected in France and Labour's modest triumph in the council polls, it is hardly surprising that David Cameron and Nick Clegg feel the need to renew the vows they exchanged in the shotgun wedding of 2010. But whether they should stick to the letter of the pre-nup that they signed on that fateful day is another matter. The economy desperately needs investment, and the government badly needs a sense of purpose. There are few signs that either are planned. And that reflects a failure of imagination by Nick Clegg and his improbably sidekick Danny Alexander.

The Budget was not just a disaster for the Tories, countering George Osborne's smugness with its extraordinary collection of crowd-displeasers. It was also a failure for Nick Clegg, because he failed to persuade his coalition partners that cutting the 50p tax rate at a time when the country (and Europe) has entered into a populist anti-rich rage might not be the best idea, just at the moment.

But then despite the hype there is little sign that the Liberal Democrats have gained much beyond becoming a punching bag for liberal initiatives already favoured by Cameroon reforms, such as gay marriage or even Lords reform. The Lib Dems have failed utterly to promote the sort of infrastructural investment that might move the economy from Osborne's recession into lasting growth. School building has been slashed. House building is a combination of anti-Labour spin and coalition inaction. The high speed rail will take years to materialise and Heathrow is chaotic not just because of Teresa May's passport panic, but because there is nowhere for the planes to land half the time. High speed broadband seems a distant dream, especially with BT involved.

We have seen that infrastructure can be delivered on budget and on time with the Olympic stadium. And I have no quibble with efforts to get better value for money than Labour in public building projects. But there is simply not enough action on providing the major infrastructural investment that could give the economy the kickstart it needs, boosting demand and jobs, and ensuring more people pay taxes rather than draw benefits. Rather than fighting plans for an extra £10bn cut in welfare budgets, Clegg should be seeking to cut the budget by getting people into real jobs. At present, all that's on offer is the dubious rebadging exercise known as the Youth Contract.

Within months, Europe including Germany will recognise - in part because of what's happening in France and Greece - that it needs a better balance between austerity and growth, and that investment projects are needed for the latter. The US under Barack Obama has recognised that, as has the IMF and OECD in its advice to member nations. This is not about cutting day-to-day spending, which will have to continue, though Osborne always underestimated its knock-on impact on private sector services, but about medium to long-term investments that will have a return.

So, rather than whining about Lords Reform, Clegg and his colleagues should force the investment issue with a real determination: new rail, schools, housing, airports. If he focused on that rather than the dubious achievements that he cites for his role in Government to date, the voters might even notice. By the same token, Labour should switch its arguments from the speed of the spending cuts to a ceaseless demand for more capital investment, with a strong critque of the government's enduring incompetence and inability to deliver. It too might find that a successful formula to consolidate and advance on Thursday's success.

Primary schools: the right target?

Today's primary school league tables reveal that there are 1310 schools - about 1 in 12 of those reporting results - that are below the Government's floor target of 60% of pupils getting a level 4 in English and Maths. The government is right to focus on attainment at the end of primary school, as those not reaching this standard are unlikely to get good GCSE results later on. They are also right to include a progress measure within their target to address those schools that are coasting.

Floor targets were introduced by the Labour government and have been a significant success story, particularly in secondary schools, where they have helped raise the game of many. After the substantial improvements in primary school results between 1995 and 2000, the result both of stronger accountability measures and the emphasis provided by Labour's literacy and numeracy strategies, there were substantial improvements in test scores in both English and Maths. And while progress slowed for several years in the early 2000s before the Rose report renewed an emphasis on phonics, today's results show 82 per cent reaching Level 4 in English and 80 per cent in Maths (and 74 per cent in both). In 1995, the figures [pdf: Table 1] were 49 per cent and 45 per cent respectively. Whatever today's failings - and there are still a quarter of pupils who are not making the grade in one or both subjects - it is no mean achievement of thousands of schools and their teachers.

The problem is greatest for the poorest students in the weakest schools. Analysis for the new Educational Endowment Foundation based on last year's data has shown that only 40% of pupils on free school meals in below target schools gain a level 4 in English and Maths compared with 57% of FSM pupils in other schools and 81% of those not receiving FSM in non-target schools. Those are huge gaps, and a lot of work will be needed to close them.

The Government has rightly extended the academies programme to the primary sector, and is requiring the worst primaries to become academies. It is right to want them to link with strong sponsors. But it needs to strike a balance here: there are to be 1000 National Leaders of Education by 2015, and many of those can provide the challenge and help needed to improve schools, especially those that are improving and are close to the target. Mergers and federations provide opportunities that schools may embrace for financial as well as educational reasons. With a still limited capacity among sponsors, their efforts need to be well focused on the persistent low attainers and to be properly targeted.

But ministers have also missed a trick with their pupil premium. It was announced this week that the premium paid for FSM pupils will rise from £488 to £600 per pupil in 2012-13, with eligibility extended to those who may previously have been in receipt of free school meals. The slow rate of increase suggests it is unlikely the premium will reach Nick Clegg's promised level of £2,500 a year by 2015, but more importantly there are far too few levers with the premium, as there is no element of reward or sanction linked to the performance of FSM pupils. Ministers are very keen on the power of accountability, but ignore its lagging effect. More improvements could be secured if schools could see that the premium was genuinely linked to progress.

The basics matter enormously, and the biggest gainers from an emphasis on improving them will be the poorest pupils in these target schools. But the Government must make better use of its limited levers and restricted remaining resources if it is to be successful.

Paltry premium could prove a hollow victory for Clegg

The coalition has finally come clean on the size of the pupil premium. For 2011-12, it will be a mere £430 per pupil, though it will probably increase over the new four years to over £1700 a year, less than the £2500 originally envisaged by the Liberal Democrats. The premium will be paid to pupils whose parents earn less than £16,000 a year, and will not initially be weighted, so it will be on top of existing core budgets. But Danny Alexander was mistaken on Marr to imagine that the premium will make much difference in the schools that receive it.

Here's why. At the same time as the Government is introducing the premium in April, it is also making a whole series of other changes to school funding. First, it is scrapping specialist schools cash and funding for sports partnerships. That alone is worth £129 a year to every pupil in over 90% of secondary schools, not just the minority with low family incomes. Then it is likely that a series of other grants for standards will also go, worth significantly more per pupil. Finally, while it is true that salaries will be frozen next year, schools will still face the in-year costs of this year's settlement which runs from September 2010, the increase in National Insurance rates and the cost of incremental pay drift.

More importantly, while the government has removed lots of grants it is not giving them to schools to spend as they choose - a freedom they pretty much enjoy as it is - instead it is redistributing less of the cash to local authorities to allocate according to their own formulae, which will see plenty of losers. Specialist school funding, for example, may be part of the Dedicated Schools Grant baseline but there is no guarantee the same schools will get the same amount of cash. Unless any minimum funding guarantee ensures that schools get at least 1% more per pupil - including those grants in the school baseline - and the pupil premium is on top of that there will still be plenty of cries of pain from schools next year. And here's the rub for jittery Conservative and Lib Dem MPs: the decision initially to allocate the pupil premium as a straightforward top up means that the biggest losers are likely to be high-achieving schools in their constituencies, even if they benefit in the longer term from moves to a National Funding Formula.

But that's not all. There will be a double whammy for school sixth formers, particularly those from poorer backgrounds. First there is the indefensible decision to scrap the Education Maintenance Allowance, which provides 16 and 17 year-olds from families earning below £20,000 a year with £30 a week in term time - around £1200 a year or nearly four times the pupil premium - to pay for travel, books and equipment while they are studying for A levels or BTECs in school or college. There is no pupil premium for poorer sixth formers. For schools there is also a move to equalise college and school sixth form funding (reducing the latter by £200 a year) which will add further to a picture of widespread school cuts next year. Indeed scrapping the EMA in 2011-12 covers most of the first year pupil premium costs: a case of robbing one group of poorer pupils to pay another.

So, Danny Alexander was making a huge mistake this morning trying to pretend that schools will not pay for the pupil premium with big cuts. They will, as will older brothers and sisters of those who may get the premium. Michael Gove has already conceded there will some cuts. But because ministers have been trying to underplay them, the shock will be all the greater for coalition MPs next spring. The paltry premium is unlikely to do more than plug some gaps. It will seem a very hollow 'victory' for Nick Clegg at that stage.

Expertise in the Upper House

The new list of peers published today could, in one sense, be seen as a cynical exercise in patronage. And it is true that it is being used by the coalition to lessen the chances of defeat in the Upper House. But it also includes some remarkable talent among the nominees who have much to contribute beyond their partisan allegiances.

The quality of debate can only be enhanced by the presence of luminaries like Labour's Joan Bakewell, Jonathan Kestenbaum (of Nesta), Prof Ruth Lister and Prof Maurice Glasman, and the curry king Sir Gulam Noon (regardless of his donations). For the Conservatives, businessmen like Sir Michael Bishop, the British Midland founder, Downtown Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, Michael Grade, Sir Bernard Ribeiro, the surgeon, and Fiona Shackleton, the family lawyer add genuine expertise to their benches. And the Lib Dems will benefit from having Sal Brinton, Jonathan Marks QC and Claire Tyler of Relate on their side.

That's not to say that there are not also plenty of semi-retired political hacks (though Oona King, Stewart Wood and Eluned Morgan are hardly typical political appointees), with donors and time-servers rewarded particularly on the coalition benches (the Lib Dems seem to have had trouble filling their quota). But it is a reminder of what could be lost - even more so with crossbenchers - if we opt for a wholly elected House to replace the current chamber. At a time when dumbing down and generalism is all the rage, we need specialists and experts to scrutinise our legislation more than ever. All parties deserve credit for recognising this in at least some of their nominations.

A bad day for democracy

Today's High Court judgement that the election has to be rerun in the Oldham and Saddleworth seat won for Labour by Phil Woolas in the general election has wider implications than the need for a by-election in that seat. I have no wish to defend Phil Woolas's leaflets, especially given the judgement. But there have been plenty of other election leaflets produced over the years by all parties - especially by Liberal Democrats - that owe more to the Fox News interpretation of 'fair and balanced' coverage of opponents' views than the dictionary definition.

Now, many candidates who lost out narrowly in the general election or local council elections will be revisiting their opponents' leaflets to see whether they too can challenge the result. I'm no fan of robust negative campaigning, but it is a part of most healthy democracies, and the voters usually have the common sense to make up their own minds about it. If someone feels that a leaflet has libelled them, it would surely be better that they use the libel laws to seek redress rather than trying to overturn an election.

Today's judgement is worrying in that it now suggests that the judiciary can second-guess the electorate when a losing candidate doesn't like the outcome.

How not to be a Lib Dem minister

Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat minister at the Department for Education, has been coming under fire at her party's conference from delegates who object to coalition support for academies and free schools. She has just been defeated on the conference floor over the policy. Yet, in defending herself, Teather makes an extraordinary confession about her own lack of influence in her department:

"We got significant changes by working with our people in the House of Lords, negotiating behind the scenes, significant changes to improve accountability."

What she is admitting is that rather than managing to influence the original Academies Bill - and anticipate backbench criticism - Teather had to bow to the demands of her party members in the House of Lords. That is a sign not of influence, but of weakness. What she is saying is that, as a coalition minister, she has little power over the content of legislation, but her backbench Lords colleagues can do her job for her. No wonder her audience were unimpressed.

Where is the Budget for recovery?

I have written this post for the Public Finance blog on today's Budget:

So much of today’s Budget was pre-trailed – the VAT rise to 20%, the increase in capital gains tax, a public sector pay freeze, lower income tax bills for the lowest paid, eye-watering public sector cuts – that one might have expected to have seen an imaginative approach to economic recovery to compensate. Labour’s argument that the widespread cuts already announced could have a negative effect on jobs and the recovery needed to be answered. And George Osborne failed to provide an adequate response.

A modest cut in corporation tax still leaves UK rates much higher than those in Ireland, a country that has taken even harsher measures in cutting its deficit. There was nothing in the Budget to promote innovation or higher level skills – the ‘technician skills’ that are needed to provide growth and compete with the fast-growing Asian economies. The measures for small firms sounded unappetising, and as complex as in any Gordon Brown Budget. The Tories show no recognition of the interdependence of the private and public sectors, and the effect on small services businesses of big public sector cuts. Scrapping tax relief for the video games industry seems bizarre, and could affect growth in a highly innovative British success story. However, there will be relief that capital investment is not further to be reduced, particularly in schools anxiously awaiting the results of a review into Building Schools for the Future, though the level at which it is being frozen was artificially reduced as a result of forward spending on the stimulus. And there is no indication – as benefits are cut by £11bn – of any replacement for Labour’s youth jobs programmes that were cut last week.

With 25% real terms cuts in unprotected departments, there were no guarantees on education spending, even as health and aid spending were ring-fenced, which will mean a tough summer of negotiation for both the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Osborne did indicate, however, that education and defence would not be treated as harshly as other departments.

Schools will be hoping that the promised pupil premium provides some cushioning, and it will be hard to reduce frontline spending in schools, 16-19 colleges or Sure Start without causing a huge outcry, though the Treasury may argue against real-term rises with a two-year pay freeze and a future increase in staff pension contributions. Universities are likely to have to charge higher fees after the Browne review, and cuts in adult skills spending in colleges are already under way. Other big areas of spending like education maintenance allowances and children’s and youth services face possible deep cuts too.

Politically, George Osborne delivered confidently and Harriet Harman gave a sharp and well-judged response. But it is the Liberal Democrats who look most exposed over the details, particularly the VAT increase after their denunciation of the Tories’ VAT ‘bombshell’ before the election. While they may argue that they achieved some of their income tax and CGT plans – and the removal of the cider levy for their West MPs – voters are unlikely to see these as mitigating the wider impact on public services and the working poor. There were clever touches – pension pledges and an uprating of child credit – but they are unlikely to protect the party from the anger of a significant proportion of their electorate who believe this is not what they thought they were voting for. Talk of an international ‘consensus’ – not shared by Barack Obama in the US – may not be enough to win them back.

Coalition cuts enthusiasm and a lack of a growth strategy

I wouldn't argue against George Osborne's proposition that the public sector deficit is unsustainable. And there is certainly a case for reviewing public sector pensions - John Hutton is a good man for that job - and a pay freeze for public sector workers. Benefits need reform, in the direction that Labour had been moving, shifting the able-bodied from welfare to work (provided there are jobs and business opportunities in the economy). There may even be a need for the Tories to defy their pre-election commitment that there were no plans to do so and increase the general level of VAT (though an extension of the scope of VAT would be hugely regressive and politically very stupid).

However, what is most worrying about the narrative surrounding Tuesday's 'emergency' budget is the complete absence of any growth or jobs strategy, and the total lack of understanding of the interrelationship between the private and public sectors. The freezing of school building projects is crucifying the construction industry. The Nimbyist changes in housing rules will hardly help. The opposition to rail electrification or airport development suggests little understanding about the relationship between transport infrastructure and economic growth. The bizarre package of job cuts this week - including in Sheffield and in youth job programmes - shows a strange set of priorities.

So I share the concerns of those economists who argue that deep cuts without any jobs or growth strategy will depress the economy, depress growth, depress tax revenues and push up unemployment. The relish with which the Tory press has been treating the forthcoming budget has not been corrected by Osborne (despite his protestations of a belief in 'fairness' this morning) and the Liberal Democrats have utterly failed to moderate the Thatcherite enthusiasm that surrounds the whole exercise - Vince Cable has disappeared without trace.

Unless the coalition strikes a proper balance between necessary savings, tax increases and future jobs and growth, it will cause huge problems for the whole country in the future. In that, they are right to argue that we are all in this together.

The greatest reform act since 1832. Come off it.

David Cameron promised an end to the age of spin. Clearly Deputy PM Nick Clegg wasn't listening. In his hyperbolic speech today he describes his decision to reduce police access to DNA and CCTV, and to settle for the Alternative Vote instead of proportional representation as the "greatest shake-up of democracy since 1832."

What ahistorical rot. This is to ignore the changes to the House of Lords after their attempts to usurp the Liberal government in the 1911 Parliament Act. It is to pretend that the extension of the franchise after the Great War with universal suffrage in 1918 and 1928, trebling the electorate, never happened. It is to forget that the last government introduced devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, freedom of information, an end to the hereditary principle in the Lords and proportional representation for many non-Westminster polls.

But perhaps this hyperbole is a mere cover for the confusion at the heart of government over civil liberties and the police. For Clegg's speech comes a day after Theresa May rightly imposed control orders on two Al-Qaeda suspects who could not be deported (something the Liberal Democrats would abolish) and on the day that she wants to give 'frontline police officers more discretion' in charging people . So, the police will be able to charge people for minor offences more easily (though, presumably, only if they meet a requisite evidence requirement) but they will be denied access to DNA and CCTV evidence that has been so crucial in not only convicting people recently but also in uncovering miscarriages of justice. And, those of us green enough not to drive cars will still have to produce passports when our ID is demanded, as happens frequently, as we will not even be allowed to buy a government-approved ID card. I feel safer and freer already.

The Lib Dems are the big losers in the coalition

I wish the new Government well. There are some good policies in the Coalition agreement, some on political reform like PR for the Lords - though not the absurd 55% requirement in a vote of confidence - and on education (if Michael Gove uses the right levers). But one thing is clear: despite all the rantings and ravings of the Tory right, it is the Liberal Democrats that have been the clear losers. Cameron has played a blinder by convincing the world and the Lib Dems that he has had to make huge sacrifices to win this agreement.

First, the Lib Dems' power is limited. Nick Clegg as Deputy PM has settled for a desk in the Cabinet Office, but no real job. David Laws has a poisoned chalice implementing the cuts as chief secretary. Vince Cable has been sidelined on banking reform in the business department without the influence of Lord Mandelson. Danny Alexander has Scotland, a non-department. Only Chris Huhne has some influence at energy, but on nuclear power is stymied by his own party's opposition. The Lib Dem junior ministers are unlikely to have much of a role to play in each department, though they may prevent the wilder excesses of right-wing Tory ministers. Bizarrely, the Lib Dems accepted all this in preference to insisting on even one major office of state or spending department like education or health.

Second, on policy, as John Rentoul has pointed out, Clegg has been royally outmanoeuvred by Cameron. The pupil premium was Tory policy anyway: Michael Gove will be pleased to have some money for it. The £10,000 tax threshold will mean a middle class tax cut paid for by public sector savings, not a more progressive tax system (though economically a better approach, this is hardly what the Lib Dems wanted). The fixed term parliament suits Cameron as it ties in the Lib Dems. On the abstention votes on tuition fees, marriage tax or nuclear power, the Tories will win anyway with a 307-286 majority. And whether or not an AV referendum succeeds, the Tories will still be able to push through their gerrymander of English constituencies to make more of them Conservative. Cameron will be delighted to neutralise his right-wing, ditch crazy policies like the inheritance tax cut and avoid a distracting row in Europe.

Third, in return for the happy couple pix and a host of ministerial cars, they have destroyed their credibility with many of their own voters, particularly in areas like the South West where they were seen as a repository for anti-Tory votes and in Northern cities where their council base had already started to crumble. Many Lib Dem members are already joining Labour.

None of this is to suggest that the Lib Dems weren't right to enter a coalition deal. Indeed, they deserve some praise for being prepared to sacrifice their party for the sake of stable government. But anyone who thinks that they are the winners from the whole deal has been spending far too much time watching 24 hour news and reading the papers.

This post has been picked up by Iain Dale.

Myths about a progressive coalition

I understand why David Blunkett and John Reid believe that it is not in Labour's interests to enter a 'progressive coalition' with the Liberal Democrats and others. And it may be that such an arrangement does not emerge.

However, there are several myths about such a government which should be scotched from the start.

* It would not last as its majority would be precarious. In fact, there is no more reason why it would not last than there would be for a government with a small majority. With an understanding with other parties, there would need to be discussions before key votes. But that happens with contentious legislation and unruly backbenchers, as with the 2005 schools legislation. Given that there are 336 MPs who are not Tories, this need not be the case. With political reform and other issues, there would be every reason for minor parties to support the government. In fact, a Con-Lib Dem coalition would also be at risk to the vagaries of its backbenchers.

* The Tories won the election. No they didn't. If they had done so under their cherished First Past the Post system, David Cameron would be in No 10 now.

* The Liberal Democrats are being duplicitous for talking to Labour. This is pompous rot from the Tory press. In any coalition discussions, parties always talk to all potential partners. The voters gave us a hung parliament. They left the Lib Dems with the balance of power, not the Tories with an overall majority. The Lib Dems are sensibly keeping their options open.

* A Lab-Lib Dem coalition would be less legitimate than a Tory minority government. Really? One has 52% of the votes, the other 36%.

* The SNP would have to be part of any deal. No they wouldn't. With 13 Northern Irish MPs, there would be a total of 328 MPs with a 323 winning post. In addition, Plaid Cymru have three seats and the Greens one.

* The markets are reacting terribly to all this. Yesterday we were promised a stock market crash, and there was a huge surge because of Europe. Today, there was the inevitable correction but Sterling has risen against the Euro.

* It is a betrayal of the manifesto not to have a referendum on AV. Since the referendum was intended as a half-way house towards AV and it is also a half-way house towards STV, it is hard to sustain this argument unless you are a died-in-the-wool FPTPer. But it would be sensible to put both AV and a more proportional alternative to a referendum.

The opportunity of the new politics

The Tories' obsession with party interest looked like it trumped their supposed concern for the national interest. Their unwillingness to cede any ground on electoral reform until tonight's grudging concession on the Alternative Vote suggested that their shrill concerns about the economy amount to nought. Instead they assumed that the Liberal Democrats would be bullied into doing a deal on their terms, where Cameron failed to win over sufficient voters through such an approach. Now they know otherwise, and their offer may be too little too late.

Gordon Brown's brave decision to stand down as leader is right both for the Labour Party and the country. It offers a chance of an alternative government. As I said here on Friday, the 320 votes that it would generally command (including 5 Northern Ireland MPs) means that it would only require the support of one of the DUP, SNP or PC to have a Commons majority given the absence of Sinn Fein and the neutrality of the Speaker.

It is important, however, that any new Government has a clear but minimalist agenda, which reflects the best of both parties' policies. It should certainly prioritise economic stability, with a clear timetable for the savings needed, and political reform, with the Additional Member System for Westminster elections a sensible compromise for a referendum. Labour's NHS guarantees should not be traded, and there must be a rigorous approach to welfare reform. On education, the pupil premium in education is a good idea, but it must be funded, and there should be renewed enthusiasm for academies. However, higher tuition fees for universities will be necessary, despite the Lib Dems misleading pitch to student voters. Where possible, investment in new schools and high-speed railways should continue. Equally, given Labour's losses in the South last week, it is vital that nothing is done to increase income taxes further: there are alternatives like VAT which hit luxuries but not food or children's clothing. A new government may wish to drop ID cards (though as a non-driver, I'd quite like one) but must be wary of losing traditional Labour support on crime or immigration.

A new outward-looking and forward-looking party leader like David Miliband has the chance to revive Labour's fortunes. It is vital that Labour does not choose a leader who has all Brown's faults but none of his virtues. And Gordon had his strengths, particularly on the economy; moreover our results last week were not as bad as many feared, particularly in local government. But equally there is no doubt that his leadership cost us a lot of seats in the South and South West. A new leader with a less statist approach to public services and a more open approach to the public has the chance to reconnect with those voters.

Today's changes offer an opportunity for genuine new politics, even though the odds may still be on a Tory-Lib Dem arrangement. Whether the opportunity succeeds will depend as much on whether the Tories offer a real vote on PR as it will on the ability of Labour to agree the right deal and retain the support of smaller parties through very tough decisions.

The time has come for electoral reform

Liam Fox on the Today programme this morning suggested that electoral reform was some sort of fringe issue alien to the great British public. Unlike, presumably, the Tories' plans to gerrymander the constituencies in England to embed a permanent Tory majority of seats. Since Labour and the Lib Dems favoured at least a referendum on electoral reform, and most of the smaller parties support it, this means that 60% of voters backed parties supportive of electoral reform with a voting system where everyone's vote counts. And 36% backed a party in favour of gerrymandering the existing constituencies. Nick Clegg should remember that in his discussions with David Cameron, and settle for nothing less than an early referendum on the issue.

Clegg could destroy the Liberal Democrats

Nick Clegg's conceit in pretending that the Liberal Democrats are not thinking about what might happen if - as seems increasingly likely - there is a hung parliament after the general election will fool nobody. But Andrew Adonis was right yesterday (on this, as on the BA strike) in pointing out just how damaging an alliance with the Conservatives would be to the Liberal Democrats.

Their trouble is that, even if their voters are split in their second choice between the Tories and Labour, most of their own members are instinctively opposed to the Tories, and would find themselves to the left of Labour on a range of issues. Education is a good example. David Laws, their intelligent schools spokesman, has to tie himself in knots in a bid to embrace a position that he clearly supports - the development of academies and Tory-style free schools - whilst satisfying the traditionalists in the party by promising a strong role for local authorities and claiming to back 'academies for all' (a position which would probably mean no improvement in the weaker schools that academies largely embrace). Equally tortuous is their continued promise to get rid of university tuition fees, a position that has no intellectual coherence at a time when their finance spokesman Vince Cable is demanding public spending restraint.

These disingenuous compromises don't come in for a great deal of scrutiny when the party is unlikely to be in government, and Clegg has cleverly put forward his bottom lines on issues like education - where he promises to scrap the child trust fund to pay for a pupil premium - and voting reform, knowing that these are issues on which he can carry his party. But what if Clegg takes his party into a coalition, or more probably, props up a minority Conservative government? Unless Clegg calls a conference to ratify his decision, something he seems reluctant to do, he will destroy all the gains that his party has made since 1997. Minority parties can gain all the blame from the voters in such circumstances with little credit for the 'stability' or 'responsibility' that may also have resulted, or indeed for the policies they have successfully had introduced. So Clegg may be the kingmaker after the election, but if he gets it wrong, he may also be the author of his own party's downfall.

The Guardian: turning success into failure

All the papers have managed to bury - or ignore -the real achievement shown in yesterday's GCSE results, which saw particularly big inner city improvements. But the once Labour-supporting Guardian, which does at least do more than most to acknowledge the extent of the achievement, wins the prize for the "headline best designed to diminish a Labour government success" :

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS ACCUSE GOVERNMENT OF IGNORING 'ORDINARY' TOWNS

Genius.

A solution to Nick Clegg's tuition fees dilemma

It is a bit like Life on Mars listening to the World at One, and all those Liberal Democrats pretending that tuition fees are not a successful fact of life. Their debates are like those in the Labour Party that preceded the actual introduction of tuition fees; the only difference is that we now have hard evidence of their impact.

One objector complains that fees have stopped lots of young people going to university: yet the problem faced by universities has been precisely the opposite, in that so many want to do so. Numbers rose 8 or 9 per cent a year in spite of fees. Even the National Union of Students now favours a graduate tax. But since his party clearly has so much trouble coming to terms with reality, I have a solution for Nick Clegg.

The Liberal Democrat leader wants to pretend that his abandonment of this principled attempt to secure a few university seats for his party will be delayed rather than abandoned. Fair enough. But does he really need to present it quite so negatively? All he needs to say is that the Liberal Democrats will scrap tuition fees once they win a majority in the House of Commons. Surely all Liberal Democrats can sign up to that one.

A poor prescription from Clegg

The Liberal Democrats apparently spent a decade working out their education reforms, published today. But the result is a series of proposals that could lessen chances for poorer pupils, rather than increase them.

They have proposed abolishing most of the accountability in the system that ensures that pupils have a minimum entitlement and that spurs improvement. It is all very well sniffing about the 600 pages in the national curriculum, but this covers eleven years of a child's education, across a range of subjects. Perhaps someone could ask them what precisely they propose to drop? Tearing it up for its own sake will hardly give the entitlement to poorer children the Liberal leader Nick Clegg says he wants. That, after all, is why we have a curriculum.

Equally, one must be sceptical about plans to give all schools the same freedoms as academies: a big benefit of academies at the moment are that they focus on schools in inner city areas where results are poor. Taking away that incentive will make it harder to effect improvement in those schools, changes that academies are delivering in the vast majority of cases. There is no sign in the Lib Dem paper that they have any plans of their own to improve failing schools. (Charities can already set up schools and enter competitions for new schools under Labour legislation).

The Liberal Democrats may be on stronger ground in focusing their class size pledge on 5-7 year olds. After all, there is little evidence that lower class sizes make much difference for older children. But it is questionable that this is the best use of resources, given that most infant classes have adult:pupil ratios near or below 15 anyway, with the help of teaching assistants and one-to-one tuition. The most useful thing they could do at this age is to focus on phonics, as Labour is doing as a result of the 2005 Rose Review, and ensure pupils can read. But on this they are curiously silent, presumably on the grounds that schools should have the "freedom" not to teach children to read.

In truth, this policy paper is not all that radically different from traditional Lib Dem education policies. There is little interest in outcomes, and a big focus on inputs, including an underfunded pupil premium or voucher for poorer youngsters (not in itself a bad thing, but ignoring the extent to which money is already heavily skewed towards disadvantaged pupils - and the impact of moving towards a national funding formula on schools outside the inner cities). At the same time, they deliberately ignore all the evidence that assets are crucial to improving social mobility, by abandoning Labour's innovative child trust fund.

In the end, without clear accountability and clear expectations about outcomes, their talk of improvements rings hollow. And, with the axing of trust funds, so does their talk of improving social mobility.

This blog posting was originally written for Labourlist and has been picked up by Iain Dale.