Uk politics

And so Danny Alexander has further angered unions by making it clear that "painful decisions" are needed to reform public-sector pensions, including raising the retirement age. But his proposals should no come as a surprise. Rapid demographic transitions caused by rising life expectancy and declining fertility mean that the proportion of old to young is growing rapidly. But when the Lib Dem minister says that "people are living much longer now," he is in fact underplaying how dramatic the change has been in the last decade. According to the Office of National Statistics, the proportion of people in Britain aged 65-and-over increased from 15 per cent in 1984 to 16 per cent in 2009, an increase of 1.7 million people.

After the vacillations of recent days, the government could do with a show of hardheadedness — and Danny Alexander is delivering just that today. He is announcing the government's plans for public sector pension reform later, and they're exactly the sort of plans that will set the union bosses frothing: an increase in the public sector retirement age to 66, an increase in contributions, that sort of thing. But the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is unapolgetic. In an article for the Telegraph, he effectively says that this is a take-it-or-leave-it offer for the public sector. "It may be that those who oppose change think they can force the Government to change its mind," he writes, with his pen pointed accusingly at the unions planning strikes for next month.

Recent wars have given rise to an unusual phenomenon in British civil-military relations: frequent, and often high-profile interventions, by serving or recently retired senior military officers in public debates. The latest has been the intervention of Britain's chief naval officer, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, who questioned the Navy’s ability to sustain the Libya campaign. Different prime ministers have dealt with this kind of outspokenness in different ways. Tony Blair was too weak to rein in Army chief Sir General Richard Dannatt, while Gordon Brown did not have the credibility, vis-à-vis the military, to do so either. David Cameron is different. He is at the height of his powers and determined that he, not the military leadership, should exercise command.

The good, the bad and the ugly of the coalition’s reform agenda are all on display this morning. The good is the quickening of the pace in education. As Michael Gove tells this week’s Spectator, the 200 worst primary schools will now be taken over by new management, 88 failing secondary schools are to be converted into academies and any school where half the pupils are not reaching the basic standard of five good GCSEs including English and Maths will be earmarked for a takeover. Gove’s aim is remarkably simple: he wants good schools to take over bad ones.   The bad is yet another delay to the public service reform white paper, the longer things stay in the Whitehall system the less radical they become.

Alan Milburn's article for the Telegraph this morning is a rhetorical blitzkreig against the coalition and their NHS reforms. From its opening shot that "The Government health reforms are the biggest car crash in NHS history," to its closing call for Labour to "restake its claim to be the party of progressive, radical reform," it is searing stuff. And no-one is spared, least of all Andrew Lansley and his "foolish bout of policy-wonking". Such fierce language is unusual, even by the standards of cross-party rough 'n' tumble. What makes it extraordinary is that Milburn is employed by the government to work on their social mobility agenda. The coalition's last report on the matter even expanded and prolonged his role.