Fraser Nelson

Is Michael Gove’s school reform a hideous distortion of the Labour Academies programme, as Ed Balls put it, or the fulfillment of that agenda? Until now Lord Adonis, the architect of the Academies programme, has kept silent on the issue. But he’s interviewed in The Spectator tomorrow by Matthew Smith, editor of Attain magazine. Here is a brief extract: 'Ed Balls has declared Gove’s plans for academies as ‘a total perversion of Labour’s policy, which was about turning round under-performing schools in disadvantaged areas’. Adonis’s response is rather different.  ‘Neither I nor Tony Blair believed that academies should be restricted to areas with failing schools.

David Cameron was on Marr this morning (with yours truly doing the warm-up paper review), talking about the "tough and difficult year" ahead. Others have been through the interview for its general content. What interested me was its economic content: not the most sexy subject in the world, I know, but, as Alan Johnson unwittingly demonstrated on Sky this morning, the Labour Party looks unable to scrutinise the government's economic policy. Anyway, here are ten observations:   1) "Because of the budget last year, we are lifting 800,000 people out of income tax, we're raising income tax thresholds. That will help all people who are basic rate taxpayers." Thanks to the Lib Dems. But it's a great claim, and I'm glad Cameron is making it.

How much bigger does Britain's inflation have to become before Mervyn King realises it’s a problem? The VAT rise should have lifted prices by 2.1 percent – but shopkeepers over Britain have been applying far larger rises. Why? Because one of the most important factors in economics – expectation of inflation – is back. People are bracing themselves for another year of rising heat, transport and staff costs – so retailers hike up prices in anticipation, and a vicious spiral of inflation begins. The Retail Price Index was up 4.8 percent last November, and Consumer Price Index 3.3 percent. The price of this failure of monetary policy is paid by ordinary taxpayers, whose wages stand no chance of keeping up with the rise in prices.

When a Conservative leader wishes the LibDems well in a three-way marginal by-election, then what is going on? Andrew Gilligan’s piece today shows that the Conservative campaign there is muted, and my colleague Melissa Kite reported earlier that Cameron personally called off  the hunt supporters, Vote OK, who were planning to boost the Tory campaign. Little wonder that Conservative MPs are beginning to smell a rat. They are being told this is the cohabitation of rival parties; in the Daily Telegraph tomorrow, I ask if this is actually a merger.   From the start of this coalition, I’ve been struck by the differences between the coalition in Westminster, and that I witnessed during my tour of duty in the Scottish Parliament.

It is an exciting day for Liberty Osborne, the Chancellor’s daughter, to join him at work. The windows at HM Treasury are boarded up, workmen line the road replacing the bombproof (but not student-proof) glass. Graffiti defaces the walls, but although several politicians are named and shamed in spray paint (‘Why did Nick Clegg cross the road? Because he’d promised not to’) there is nothing unkind about the author of the cuts: George Osborne himself. When we meet the Chancellor at 10.30 a.m. in 11 Downing St, he does not look the slightest bit like a man under siege. Seven-year-old Liberty bounds out of his study, waving at us cheerfully. The Chancellor is no less upbeat.

The Christmas Special of The Spectator is out today, and George Osborne kindly agreed to an interview. We have printed 1,500 words in the magazine, but James and I thought CoffeeHousers may like a fuller version, where he has more space to speak for himself.  We have gone into way more detail on tax policy here than in the magazine, for example, as Osborne is seldom pressed on this point and his thoughts are very interesting. We have divided it up by subject headings, so CoffeeHousers can skip the chunks they’re not interested in.   Liberty, paternity and Treasury It is an exciting day for Liberty Osborne, the Chancellor’s daughter, to join him at work.

Each time politicians fight regulation, regulation normally wins. So far it seems like this coalition government is no different. John Redwood has been busy tabling parliamentary questions asking each department how many regulations have been introduced, and how many repealed. Rather than “one in, one out” in turns out that two regulations have been introduced for every one revoked. Eric Pickles emerges as the star, having revoked twice as many as he introduced. But the rest? Here’s the league table: I don’t think that the “guilty” ministers have been lax. It’s just that the system is out of control.

All the attention last week was on the Lib Dem split – but what about the division within the Conservatives? This is the greater threat to the coalition, and while there is not likely to be an earthquake soon, one can discern the outlines of the tectonic plates. Ladbrokes has odds of 5-2 of an election next year, and these don't seem so short when one considers the short life of coalitions in British peacetime history. So where might the tension lie? A while ago, I referred to the bulk of the party as "mainstream Conservatism," as a more useful phrase than the tautological "Tory right". Tim Montgomerie last week drew a distinction between this and what Ken Clarke calls "liberal Conservatism".

The revolution may not be televised, but protests certainly are – and the process magnifies the drama. Since last night, the news broadcasts have all had footage of two thugs trying to smash the windows of the Treasury and, in the process, familiarising themselves with the properties of bombproof glass. The attack on Charles and Camilla's royal limo is splashed across all this morning's front pages. The script is so well-rehearsed now that I hesitate to repeat it: the vast majority are peaceful protesters, infiltrated by vandals who soak up the attention. Many of the protesters yesterday looked like they’d get a cab straight back home to their Notting Hill trust-fund houses.

The Adam Smith Institute kindly asked me to speak at their Christmas reception last night, and yesterday I was mulling what to say. When at The Scotsman ten years ago, I would sometimes visit the great man's grave in Edinburgh, and be surprised to see only Chinese tourists paying tribute. It was a pretty good sign of how political power would play out. Edinburgh is, with Prague and Stockholm, among the most beautiful cities in Europe; itself a monument to the Enlightenment. And how tragic that students – even Scottish ones – are taught about the E word only in the context of the French Enlightenment. The likes of Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot wrote of grandiose ambitions and recasting society using state power.

You almost feel sorry for Nick Clegg this week, with the tuition fees vote in prospect. Being hated is difficult for LibDems because they didn’t expect it. Not so with the Tories. As a conservative, you usually realise early on that you're going to be a small fish swimming against the current of fashionable received wisdom – and that will involve various tribulations. Like having to persuade your non-political friends that you do not advocate slaughter of the firstborn, and that there is a difference between believing in empowering people, and wanting to let the devil take the hindmost. If you turn up to the Islington Conservative Carol Concert (as Eric Pickles is doing), then you brace yourself for protesters outside it (as there will be).