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[/audioplayer]We’ve come to expect strange things from coalition government, but the events of the last few days have been particularly odd. On Saturday, several newspapers contacted the Department of Education about a story claiming that its budget was in chaos. Officials set about drafting a clear rebuttal. But this was vetoed by David Laws, the Liberal Democrat schools minister, preventing his department from denying a damaging story.
This act of self-harm was just the latest twist in the spat between the Liberal Democrats and Michael Gove’s former adviser, Dominic Cummings. Following Cummings’s revelations about the shambolic state of the Liberal Democrat programme to give every five- and six-year-old a free school meal, the Lib Dems responded by briefing that the rest of the Education budget was being raided to bail out Gove’s free schools project. It makes one wonder what state the coalition will be in by the time its gets to March next year.
The past few weeks have been dire for coalition comity.
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