Uk politics

The indefatigable Paul Waugh reports that Andy Coulson plans to break Tom Watson’s delicate heart: the government’s communications director is not going to resign for whatever it is that he is alleged to have done. Pity poor Tom. Coulson may be an anonymous figure, certainly by comparison with Alistair Campbell, and the government may have problems articulating a growth strategy. But Coulson’s survival will warm the cockles of Tory MPs, who rely on him to uphold those issues the leadership ignores. Witness Coulson’s savage reprimand for Crispin Blunt over the prisoners’ entertainment plans.

There has been much consternation and intrigue swirling around both Dublin and Westminster this afternoon about the near-collapse of the governing coalition in Ireland. The Greens, who support Brian Cowen’s Fianna Fáil-led government, pulled out; seeking a dissolution in the hope that it might save their skins from the fate that is likely (though not certain) to befall Fianna Fáil. If the government had collapsed, then IMF would have postponed the bailout. At least now Cowen can formulate a monetary plan, hopefully under the oversight of Ireland's international creditors, to free the country from its current extremis.

Last week, the FT revealed that Michael Gove was planning to introduce direct funding of schools, a move that weaken local authorities’ grip on education funding. Theoretically, it is a central component of Gove’s plan to free schools from local authorities’ bureaucratic control in a bid to improve standards by creating a quasi-market. It was, as Gove’s aides have been at pains to express, ‘exciting’. But Gove denied the story on Andrew Marr this morning: the legislation will contain no such clause. The FT responded this afternoon, proving that Gove has diluted the legislation.