"He sees it as his job to look in charge and respond coolly to events as they arise while gradually nudging the country in a more Tory direction".
The Tory direction of travel is for a smaller, less prescriptive national curriculum, a greatly reduced role for local councils, encouragement for new providers of schools and less red-tape tying the hands of entrepreneurial head teachers.
However, he said it would be an absolute disaster for Britain to leave the EU and promised to halt the Tory direction of travel towards the exit door.
But as an indication of the Tories' direction of travel, more detailed than anything either main party has produced until now, it is enough.Mr Osborne's was a brave step.
Clegg was at it again yesterday, with an FT interview that seemed to tilt favourably in the Tories' direction – and also to soften what had appeared to be the hard, non-negotiable Lib Dem precondition of electoral reform.
At last, it seemed that the Tories had direction and Mr Duncan Smith a recognisable and attractive political personality.Not for very long, unfortunately.
Dr Georgina Toye Bath After a series of previews of the content of George Osborne's first Tory budget, the direction of travel is clear, and it is equally clear that some of us may have underestimated the Lib Dem influence over the past five years (The benefit cap is a disgrace. Labour should resist the latest cut, Editorial, 7 July).
Mr Letwin also says that there is a big difference between Labour and the Tories over the direction of taxation and spending, which would have a dramatic effect over time on economic efficiency.He may be right, but to most people, the differences must appear tiny.
In a move which some commentators said could signal a change of direction in Tory education policy, the home secretary gave her support last week to a study looking into opening a "satellite" state-funded grammar school in her constituency.
With concerns mounting among Tory MPs over the direction of education policy, the Conservative-led Local GovexpectedAssociatoon is expectedirectlyechallengelenge ministers to explain how local authorities can be expected to meet the increased demand when government plans to force all schools to become academies will strip them of any power to build new schools or force existing ones to expand.
The first joke – a riff pointing out that he isn't the self-serving attention-seeker the media always likes to portray – falls predictably flat, but soon he finds his feet, winning laughs with a self-deprecating take on his new direction, thanking Tory voters in Montgomeryshire for "kick-starting a career I didn't even know I wanted".
