PM accused of covering up coalition ‘failure audit’

London Evening Standard/London

David Cameron was accused of covering up bad news yesterday after a blunder by a Downing Street aide revealed a “secret audit” of coalition failures.

In a fiasco that could have been written for TV satire The Thick Of It, a Downing Street adviser was photographed walking into No 10 carrying a document which discussed burying the awkward findings, by slipping them onto the internet “without fanfare”.

The document, containing more than 100 pages, lists 399 cast-iron pledges made in the 2010 Coalition Agreement. It sorts them into those fulfilled, those which are in progress, and those which have been abandoned as mistakes or as too difficult.

It was originally prepared for Monday’s relaunch of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition, and was described by Downing Street as an annexe to the 52-page, highly-spun summary handed out by Cameron and Deputy Premier Nick Clegg.

Labour leader Ed Miliband accused the prime minister of “incompetence” for holding back the findings, which are thought to have taken hundreds of hours of work by civil servants at the public expense.

“Cameron is so useless he’s having to relaunch his relaunch,” said Miliband. “What do we know about this government? They’re incompetent. They’re divisive. And the nasty party is back.”

The existence of the audit came to light in farcical circumstances. Patrick Rock, a political adviser to the prime minister, was photographed at Downing Street carrying a document that clearly proposed slipping out the findings in a way that would minimise public attention.

Under the heading Points Against Publication — clearly seen in a blown-up image — it said there was a list of “main problematic areas” and warned that publishing the findings would lead to “unfavourable copy”, including identifying “broken pledges”. It also said that the audit might seem “overly self-congratulatory at a time of great national difficulty”.

The prime minister’s spokesman denied a report in the Telegraph, which revealed the document, that the audit had found 70 broken pledges. But officials said it did identify a “small number” of pledges where the government had changed its mind. “We are at the halfway point of the parliament,” said an official. “Some (pledges) have been done, such as the EU referendum lock. In some cases work is ongoing, such as progress towards the £10,000 tax-free allowance.

“There are a small number where we have taken a different approach to that set out in the Coalition Agreement.”