Brown Love Law

You've got to hand it to Brown, as lawmaking goes, yesterday was something of a high water mark.

How do you square the proposed "Fiscal Responsibility Bill" - a legal obligation for the government to halve the deficit with, for example, the "Children, Schools and Families Bill" which obliges councils to pay for extra tuition when a child falls behind. How do you pay for the latter when legally obliged to do the former.

Answer : "We don't have to."

The clue was in culture secretary Ben Bradshaw's rebuff to criticisms that there was no mention of expenses or a parliamentary clean-up in the Queens speech. Bradshaw simply said government had " legislated to set up an independent regulator... given control of the process away". In other words, it's no longer this government's or Parliament's responsibility.

When the council comes, cap in hand Bradshaw can tell them, "Sorry, we're legally obliged to halve the deficit - you guys are legally obliged to fund the tuition. That's the law. It's out of our hands".

Which all begs the question, what happens if they don't halve the deficit, if the council can't fund additional school tuition, who do you take to court ? Who pays the legal fees ? Where does the money come from to pay damages ?

That'll be the taxpayer then.