Government

The press has gone to town on the government’s spending spree; more than £80bn of central government expenditure, itemised in this imposing document published today by Francis Maude. The government will squirm at some findings, notably on redacted defence procurement contracts, Libyan oil agreements and the 194,000 payments made to individuals and private companies (Capita has been paid £3.3bn for outsourcing government work, and De Beers, the diamond cutters, received nearly £1,200 from the Business Department). Already the blame game has begun, with Labour and the coalition sparring from a distance.

There is no sign of the heir to Blair at the Commons Liaison Committee this afternoon; in fact, David Cameron has been possessed by the ghost of Gordon. So far the Prime Minister’s answers have been cumbersome and statistic-heavy; and his delivery has had the dexterity of a three-legged elephant. He will have expected cannons to the left of him, but to the right as well? If he imagined that Tory backbenchers would coo appreciatively he will have been sadly disabused. Andrew Tyrie, James Arbuthnot and Bernard Jenkin have eviscerated him over the conduct of the strategic defence review. They deplored the culture of leaks and counter-briefing and probed Cameron for his role in the process.

The West Wing has an amazing hold over Fleet Street. The TV series has not only taught a generation of British reporters about US politics but even influenced the way that they see the workings of Westminster. Every time centre-right writers think David Cameron is seen as having made a mistake - mistreated his back-benchers, hired a personal photographer or made a foreign policy gaffe - they trot out the same refrain: No 10 needs a powerful Leo McGarry-type chief of staff who can bring the various parts of the operation together from Steve Hilton's work to Andy Coulson' operation. An enforcer, a puller-togetherer. I have three arguments against a British Leo McGarry.

Monday is eagle day for the overhaul of government machinery. Ben Brogan explains how the publication of 20 departmental business plans will enable the public to chart the progress of government reform – inaugurating a revolution is transparency, that meme of the moment. I’ve always wondered why the Tories are so keen on touting ‘transparency’. One answer, it seems, is to expose those ministers and departments who are dragging their feet. This instrument of New Politics doubles as a self-protection mechanism, which is especially useful with those dastardly Lib Dems and the odd pugilistic right winger scurrying about. Brogan writes: ‘The plans will spell out the timetables for implementing every stage of the reforms promised this summer.

In these grim dark days of austerity and cuts, the coalition urgently needs to find a compelling political narrative of hope and optimism. David Cameron's Big Society rhetoric occasionally threatens to contain some philosophical depth, but suffers from the same problem as most new fangled analyses of the world. Namely, it is so fluffy that it becomes bewildering.   To the government's credit, they have managed to prepare the public for the upcoming belt tightening. This achievement is all the more remarkable given the woeful refusal of either coalition party to admit the scale of the fiscal problem facing Britain during the general election campaign.   But softening up public opinion for wide ranging cuts is only a short term tactic, however necessary.

The electoral reform bill has passed comfortably, by 328 votes to 269. Now comes the hard bit: this bill is going to be deservedly lacerated in committee. The bill drew opprobrium from all sides of the house throughout this afternoon’s long debate, notably from both wings of the Tory party. First, the government has coupled boundary reform to the alternative vote referendum. Peter Hain, Labour’s most articulate attack dog, unleashed his thesaurus and referred to the bill as a ‘smoke-screen for colossal gerrymandering’. He was speaking for his ardently hypocritical and opportunistic party. The government’s motives were not so cynical; it coupled the bill’s two aims to aid swift progress through the commons.

Nick Clegg has made this statement on Channel Four News: ‘I have always been open that my personal opinion that the legal base is not justified for our going into war. That wasn't the view of the previous government, this government as a whole, the new coalition government, doesn't take a view on the legality of it. But I don't think it is right for me to enter government and somehow completely airbrush out well-known personal views that I have held and expressed for a very long time. ‘I am the deputy prime minister, I am also a human being who feels with great conviction about things. I don't think that politics is well served by politicians suddenly falling utterly silent on things that they are well known to feel strongly about.

Why increase aid to Afghanistan by 40pc when troops are dying from a lack of body armour and helicopters? The pledge to not just protect but vastly increase the aid budget is one which, polls show, leaves the public puzzled.  I was on the Politics Show with Jon Sopel, who was putting to Andrew Mitchell some very sharp questions about all of this. Why build schools in Afghanistan, but cancel them in Britain? Worse, in fact, DFID has a habit of building schools but not finding teachers for them - its ideology states that teaching should be a job for central government, just like it is in Britain. The Afghan government is corrupt and pays a pittance for teachers, who can usually earn more as translators for other foreigners, etc.

It’s all going swimmingly. David Cameron is almost as popular as Gordon Brown was in August 2007. A worrying omen perhaps, but for the moment the government’s honeymoon is in full swing. It’s quite a bash, and many of the coalition’s initial detractors admit to being pleasantly surprised by Cameron and Clegg. Iain Martin is positive, though he maintains a learned scepticism. Fraser Nelson can see a possible re-alignment of British party politics, and today Martin Kettle gushes about Cameron the ‘man of grace’. I'm not sure what a 'man of grace' is, but Cameron’s languid charm and opportunism are effective. Kettle writes: ‘[Cameron] recognises that he is delivering a deal, not a sell-out.

In this exchange from the “Yes, Minister” TV series Sir Humphrey welcomes the newly-appointed James Hacker to his department. 'James Hacker: Who else is in this department? Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well briefly, Sir, I am the Permanent Under Secretary of State, known as the Permanent Secretary. Woolley here is your Principal Private Secretary, I too have a Principal Private Secretary and he is the Principal Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary. Directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, 87 Under Secretaries and 219 Assistant Secretaries.