Unfortunately, this is a game of three steps back with the outside possibility of one step forward…for now. Here are the three own-goals scored by those who boss us about yesterday:

1. Brown gave the go-ahead to a £100 billion spend on offshore turbines. See previous pieces ad nauseam re this one, but the Sun headline is they don’t work, and cost a fortune to maintain. The Dutch have known this for half a decade – that’s why they aren’t erecting any more.
2. In pursuance of Hattie Crime, a £15 surcharge has been added to all speeding offence fines ‘to help the victims of domestic violence and sex attacks’. Dear oh dear etc – but what’s worse is that of course it won’t be used for that at all: its just another hugely inflationary tax to support the Cutting by Investing mission.
3. From 2011, all kids will take a compulsory subject called British Identity. This is presumably in case any of them are so binged and bonged out, they think they might be in Uzbhekistan; joke over – read the curriculum for this subject. And weep. To confuse everyone further still, at roughly the same time the EU is to introduce a subject for 13-30 (?) year-olds called Being European. It is going to oost a horrific 880 million Euro a year.