If you're going to the North Country, fair...

Leeds, West Yorkshire, 20:45

Soldiers in the classroom, every child made to wear a tie in school, Churchill back on the curriculum. Welcome to England in 2010. It's Back to the Future all over again. Michael 'milquetoast' Gove, Shadow Schools Secretary, and a 'one-man think-tank' according to party colleagues, unveiled his vision for Education reform today at the Tory Conference in Manchester. He blames the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Education quangos and liberal teachers and education thinkers for what he calls 'decades of failure' in the schools system in Britain. And he wants to turn the clock back, right back. I'm only surprised he didn't announce a return to blackboards, inkwells and chalk.

Of course, I'm being unfair, the real meat in his proposals come in the form of opening up the Academy system so that private groups can set up and run their own not-for-profit schools. It's not a bad idea on the face of it - unleash some energy and innovation by letting people take control, decentralise, use the wisdom of the crowd. But will it work? and more importantly, how will it work? Well, for one, the Swedish boffin who invented the system and deployed it in his own country, thinks it will fail unless the schools are allowed to turn a profit. I'm certainly no expert on schools, and I have no idea what will happen. But all it really proves is how very New Labourish the new Conservative party really is.

Had a certain Tony Blair still been in charge, by now he would surely have introduced a similar policy. It was he, afterall, who introduced city academies, to much naysaying from the opposition and education groups. And he himself admitted latterly that he should have increased the pace of reform, and its scale. That is basically what the Conservatives are doing. Their fiscal policies, which attracted praise for their honesty and courage this week, are remarkably similar to Labour's own plans - they would just be implemented sooner, and involve marginally larger cuts. Both parties are battling, as every commentator has observed, to show who is prepared to curb public spending quickest. It doesn't feel like an auspicious time to be working for a quango, and Gove's promise to 'cut them to the bone' was enough to send a shiver down my spine.

But then, it would hardly be any different if, by some unforeseen combination of extraordinary happenings, Labour is returned to power. They'll do the same, just more gradually. Of course, they don't really have a lot of choice, and the speed of the reduction in the deficit is an important, not a trivial matter. But it's still important to recognise that public debt is not as important as investment and unemployment. The return to higher revenues has to be the government's highest priority, not just cutting a little bit of overspending here and there. I just hope that, when they're running the red pen over those AME figures they don't even spot the line for Culture, Media and Sport, which is so miniscule it hardly counts anyway.

I'm in Leeds for a digital technology workshop for our staff, a workshop that I devised and pushed through with HR's money. Unfortunately I didn't have any idea how much trains to Leeds cost, so I got a rude shock at the ticket machine when I had to pay over a hundred pounds for an off-peak return. I'm not even sure if my boss will sign off my expenses form, and to be honest I wouldn't blame him - I should have booked well in advance. But on the other hand, it's a big hit to take just to do my job. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the train got stuck for 70 minutes, yes 70 minutes, just outside Kings Cross because the one in front broke down. We had to reverse back to the station and take a different track. Jesus. So, hungry, cold and tired, and with a pitiful trickle of bandwidth on the train, I found myself a hundred miles north of civilisation, two hundred quid lighter of pocket, and looking forward to a tough day tomorrow.

I suppose I should be thankful I've still got a job. I probably won't by this time next year.