The Lib Dems no longer support school choice

Throughout this latest, blazing Coalition row over Michael Gove – which is spreading like fire over dry heath and has now ignited the normally harmonious Treasury – the Liberal Democrats have insisted that they support free schools. They argue that it is simply Gove’s ‘zealotry’ in transferring £400 million from the basic need allocation to the free schools project, not the principle of free schools. They are indeed mostly needled by years of working with a man who they find difficult to work with, and whose enthusiasm for certain aspects of education, whether it be free schools or the history curriculum, irritates them. They were also needled by the way his advisers sought to cut them out of the policymaking process (although as Dominic Cummings told Coffee House on Friday, this often needled Downing Street too).

But listen carefully to their protests. The briefings over the weekend and the continuing sniping today contains an important line that shows the Lib Dems are pulling out of the education big tent.