Have a Good NEWS

The furore about Michael Gove's cuts to the school rebuilding programme is a foretaste of what lies ahead

Michael Gove gives good apology. In fact, the education secretary is so accomplished at the apology that he offered two of them, the first to the House of Commons and then again the next day to a local government conference. He chomped through this double serving of humble pie with lashings of grovel sauce after his department bungled the announcement of cuts to the school rebuilding programme.

There's a part of me that finds something quite refreshing about the sight of the politician penitent. They are usually ready to offer regrets only for things that happened centuries ago which were never their responsibility in the first place. Tony Blair once said sorry for the Irish potato famine; Gordon Brown did the same about sending children up chimneys. When it came to their own mistakes, it required the services of a team of crack surgeons working around the clock to extract an apology. In the case of Mr Brown, the operation was even then nearly always a failure.

Michael Gove's readiness to take public responsibility for his department's blundering was a disarming tactic. It is not one, though, that can be employed too often before the apologist becomes ridiculous. Nor has his contrition, while well-judged, drawn all the sting from the anger about his announcement. How could it? He is neither apologising for, nor retreating from, the essential decision. That is to terminate the rebuilding of 700 schools, a cut to a front-line public service about which the voters were not forewarned in the Conservative manifesto.

Labour has gone on the attack, as you'd expect. At some point, when Labour finally has a leader, the opposition will have to come up with a credible explanation for how it would deal with the deficit. For the moment, Labour spokesmen and women are going to say we wouldn't cut like this and we wouldn't cut like that.

Liberal Democrats have been voicing discontent. The leader of their group on Liverpool council says the decision has made him "physically sick

Some Lib Dem ministers have been comradely towards the education secretary, even sending him messages of sympathy and support. It is backbenchers of Michael Gove's own party who have been sounding off most furiously. Iain Liddell-Grainger, the Conservative MP for Bridgwater, is hopping mad that three schools in his constituency have been halted and another three have been put under review. He has even threatened to lead parents and children on a protest march to Westminster. Perhaps the Conservative MP should have some T-shirts and placards printed with the slogan: "No to Tory cuts".

This eruption around a cabinet minister who is part of the Cameron inner circle should send a big warning to the government. Their honeymoon with most of the media, which has helped to create a fairly positive mood towards the coalition among most voters, had started to induce complacency. Senior figures at both Number 10 and the Treasury were amazed and relieved that George Osborne's budget, the most draconian combination of tax rises and spending cuts introduced by any government since 1945, was not greeted with more hostility. That was mainly, I suspect, because its effects are still theoretical to most people. The increase to VAT and other tax rises have yet to hit disposable incomes. The public can hear the spending axe swishing through the air, but it has not bitten much flesh yet.

Emboldened by the false sense of security which has come from the deceptively benign reaction to the budget, the government's rhetoric on cuts has begun to sound near gleeful about the ferocity of the spending squeeze. They have started to appear not regretful, but boastful that they are planning the deepest and swiftest cuts in modern British history. At the time of the budget, it was being suggested that the non-ringfenced departments faced real reductions in spending of 25%. That was eye-watering enough. Some senior officials think it will prove impossible. No British government of the modern era has come close to reducing spending on that scale at this speed.

The braggadocio about cuts has alarmed even the likes of John Redwood, who warns: "Ministers would be wise to tone down the rhetoric of massive cuts." David Cameron is becoming nervous that the government is leaving the public and the media with the impression that cutting is the sole, defining purpose of the coalition. He said in a speech on Thursday: "People are making a big mistake if they think this government is just about sorting out the deficit."

People have been encouraged to think that by his own ministers, especially the noises about cuts emanating from the Treasury. Last weekend, it was being bruited that some departments, including the Home Office and transport, were being asked by the Treasury to identify spending reductions of up to 40%. That is a figure which is incredible in every sense of the word.

The reductions to the school building programme amount to a saving of only £1bn a year. I say only because, while that sounds like a big sum to anyone who is not Bill Gates, it is a microscopic fraction of the global total of cuts planned by the coalition. I am sure there will be lots of incandescent parents, heads and teachers, especially among those who were initially told their school building project was going ahead, only to find that it had been axed. I hope they will understand why I observe that they represent a minuscule fraction of the population.

This relatively tiny cut impacting on a very small proportion of the public has handed ammunition to the opposition, aroused much agitation on the government's own side, and forced two apologies from one of the key members of the cabinet. You do not need much imagination to see the opposition that will confront the coalition when they start to implement the big cuts which will impact on large numbers of voters.

Turbulence around the Minister of Education is only a light squall compared with the dark tornadoes trouble coming over the horizon.