Con Dem Government Weakness

I see that our Con Dem government has pulled back from abolishing the Bookstart programme, only a short time after pulling back on proposed cuts to school sports. 

In itself good news, but it does suggest that Philip Pullman is right in saying that the government is making proposals that are ill considered to begin with, and that it doesn't have the courage to back those proposals against serious opposition.  Such an approach guarentees maximum embarressment, rather like John Major's appraoch to defending Cabinet Ministers who were being pressed to resign.  He would back them for months only to see them resign eventually. The media started to doubt his credibility and therefore subjected each minister to a prolonged campaign on the grounds that it would eventually get him.  The present Con Dem government risks a similar lack of respect.  Not least because the Telegraph has been publishing these stories that even government minister (e.g. Vince Cable) don't believe in their own government.