Uk politics

Perhaps the Bilderberg conference has had a lasting effect on Parliament, after all. Today we saw what can only be a conspiracy between the Labour left and Michael Gove's band of reforming right-wingers. As the Education Secretary unveiled his plans to reform GCSEs, he was accosted by Diane Abbott, rarely knowingly in agreement with much of what the Coalition is doing. But the Labour MP didn't want to tell Gove he was wrong. She wanted to say he was right. She asked Gove whether he agreed that 'an emphasis on rigorous qualifications and an emphasis on attaining core academic subjects is not, as is sometimes argued, contrary to the interests of working-class children, and black minority ethnic children?

While dealing with the teaching unions is a simple stand-off for Michael Gove, spare a thought for poor old Stephen Twigg, Labour's shadow education secretary, who has to work out how on earth to deal with the NUT and NASUWT habit of opposing everything. There is a palpable sense of frustration on the Labour frontbenches about the way the two largest unions in particular behave. Twigg has made clear that he does not support strike action planned over a general raft of discontent over many different issues, and he has opposed the work-to-rule industrial action promoted by these unions too. On performance-related pay, the unions behave as though Voldemort is coming soon to a school near you, while Labour is merely unconvinced that it's the great saviour of educational excellence.

Critics and fans of Michael Gove alike accept that sometimes the Education Secretary can be a little too pugnacious. He often encourages the pantomime boos that accompany him, and will throw himself into any fight with gusto. But then the representatives of the leading teaching unions pop up to criticise his reforms, and it becomes very clear how Gove ended up like this. Christine Blower's interview on the Today programme was one notable example. The NUT general secretary argued that grades hadn't necessarily been devalued, and that the reforms might devalue the achievements of those children who have already passed their exams. She said: 'We think this is slightly rushed and also it tends to demean the achievements of students who have got GCSEs in the past.

Ed Balls has just told Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics that Labour will include pensions in their welfare cap. This opens up a major dividing line with the Tories who have been clear that George Osborne will exclude pensions from his spending cap. I suspect that Balls and Ed Miliband will now be badgered with questions about whether, if necessary, they’ll cut pensions — or not up-rate them — to meet the cap. Given the power of the grey vote in British politics (Labour estimates that one in every two voters in 2010 was over 55) they are going to come under massive pressure to rule this out. But, strikingly, Balls was not prepared to do this on  Sunday Politics. He even drew attention to the amount of welfare payments which go to the over-60s.

Tim Yeo was due to appear on Sky News' Murnaghan programme, and on the BBC's Sunday Politics this morning. But he's just pulled out of both interviews, where he would have been asked about the Sunday Times' story alleging that he coached a witness to his own select committee on the right answers. Yeo denies that he behaved improperly and told the newspaper that he had never offered parliamentary advice or advocacy. What will be interesting about the fallout from this latest round of allegations is whether politicians use it to advance their own pet theories about how parliament needs reform, or whether they examine what the particular allegations were.

Now that it has become commonplace for the press to entrap MPs and peers, why don’t our legislators try to turn the tables? I suggest that ministers sidle up to journalists (secretly filming them the while) and offer them honours. They should hint that the honour is conditional on favourable coverage, and agree to meet again in six months. In between, they should track what the journalists write, and then, when they have trapped their victims, expose the pattern. Another trick would be for politicians to get friends to pretend to be businessmen offering journalists money or freebies to place products in their stories and features. These tactics would get interesting results. The latest Sunday Times sting can be read here (£).