Conservative party

When I asked one Tory how things were going the other day, he replied "we’re living by that Silicon Valley phrase: ‘fail fast and fail often’." His argument was that for all that we in the press work ourselves into a frenzy over u-turns, the public don’t much care about them and it is much better to get these things out of the way quickly.   When I challenged him that all these shifts made Cameron look weak, his rejoinder was that as long as the coalition stuck to its deficit reduction programme voters would know that it could hang tough when it needed to.   I suspect that this argument is half-right.

As James says, it’s been a day of high passions here at The Spectator. He feels strongly that many of the problems in Britain are societal, and require a cultural shift. Maybe so. I disagree with James when he says a Prime Minister's role is to “lead society". I disagree. We pay him to run the government, not offer his advice (or, worse, condemnation) on how society is running itself. Sure, society is shaped by government incentives. Cameron can fix these. But shaping society by exhortation is not what we expect of limited government. Fundamentally, it confuses what I see as the natural pecking order. In Britain, the people pass judgment on politicians. Not the other way around.   Tim Montgomerie is on James’ side, and chastised me yesterday.

Touchpaper, meet match. That's the explosive situation engendered by Tory MP Philip Davies and his comments about disabled people this afternoon. His suggestion, made in the Commons, was that disabled people could work for less than the national minimum wage. And his justification? That the minimum wage "prevents those people from being given the opportunity to get to the first rung on the employment ladder." Charities such as Mind have since lambasted Davies for even broaching such a thing. The phrase "nasty party" is gushing around Twitter with tidal abandon. But before we pile on, it's worth noting that Davies has identified an issue that is more shades of grey than black-and-white.

The government is, rightly, receiving a monstering from the papers for its u-turns on weekly bin collections. But what is at stake here is more than just the issue of bins. The government’s failure to honour its promise on this matter casts doubt on whether ministers are strong enough and tough enough to impose their will on their departments. The two ministries dealing with the rubbish question are the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Communities and Local Government. Both are run by Conservative Secretaries of State. If this was not enough, both the Secretaries of State involved — Caroline Spelman and Eric Pickles — are personally associated with the Tory policy on bins.

The NHS saga is over at last, or so the government hopes. The coalition is expected to adopt the recommendations of the NHS Future Forum, which have been delineated by panel member Stephen Bubb in this morning’s Times (£). Last night, the prime minister and his deputy addressed their respective parliamentary brigades and each claimed the credit for re-shaping Andrew Lansley’s bill for partisan gain. The political saga continues. The Lib Dems have been crowing over their victory; the Tories are licking their wounds –a voluble Conservative MP has told Philip Johnston that a ‘once in a generation opportunity to reform the NHS has been lost.