Understanding the philosophy of the Coalition.

He who holds the purse strings will now set the priorities. My observations of the Cameron/Osborne partnership, (as detailed on my blog, Teetering Tories, over many years since the days when the new Works and Pensions Cabinet Member, Iain Duncan-Smith led the Conservative Party) lead me to conclude that, other than the burning desire to be in power, the Cameron Conservative party is an almost completely ideologically free zone.

At the Treasury, therefore, where the new Chancellor of the Exchequer will be probably anyway distracted by juggling the financial figures in the Herculean task of "accelerating the rate at which the deficit will be reduced" his new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, will thus be free to impose the Departmental spending contraints directed in accordance with his own background and priorities all as carefully described in "The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism". This book was reviewed in Liberator September 2004 edition (pdf file linked here). Required reading for all senior Civil Servants and political commentators I would suggest.

In so far as the Downing Street Duo are concerned, I find it fascinating that if David Cameron, has any guiding political principle at all it is that he seems almost obsessive in his protection for the inefficient, administratively rotten and creaking Marxist inspired National Health Service while Nick Clegg is reportedly on the record as agreeing with my view that the elevation of the NHS to the level of something akin to a religion across the UK is more than a little odd. One interesting quote from the new Deputy Prime Minister comes from a Telegraph article written dated 20th January 2008, linked here, from which comes this:

Decisions should no longer be taken in Whitehall, shrouded in secrecy. Instead, directly elected local Health Boards would put people in charge. Via the ballot box, communities could choose to focus resources where they're needed - based on their own understanding of local needs. They could choose to have the council commissioning services, too, if they preferred. In time, I envisage us going further and raising some of our NHS money locally.

Details of the referenced book as detailed on Wikipedia are as follows:

The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism
Author	Paul Marshall and David Laws (editors)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Subject(s)	Politics, Liberalism
Publisher	Profile Books
Publication date	2004
Media type	Print (paperback)
Pages	302
ISBN	1-86197-797-2
OCLC Number	59265240