Yes minister, honesty is the right policy

This Government continues to demonstrate its enormous facility for making U-turns, not only with its election promises, but also with plans announced after deliberate consideration.

In fairness, it should be recognised that obstinacy is often a political vice rather than an administrative virtue.

There are times when government must make hard decisions and stick to them, but nobody should adhere to wrong decisions. Politicians, like everybody else, are fallible, and there is something admirable and refreshing about ministers having the gumption to admit that they made a mistake.