SO another year is over — politically it has been eventful.

The May election brought a hung parliament and a big decision. Should the Conservatives and Lib Dems form a coalition?

I believe that doing so was right. Labour left our country mired in debt and paying more in interest (£43-billion per year) than we spend on defence and education combined. We could not go on like that.

One of the first actions we took was to stabilise the economy by setting out a clear plan in the June Budget for eliminating the deficit over the life of this parliament.

This is the most important task of this government — everything else depends upon it. Without a viable economy we will not be able to provide the public services we all desire.

We have already delivered on a number of key promises, including supporting the NHS by raising health expenditure (up £10.6-billion over this parliament). We have also, just as we said, reinstated the link between earnings and pensions.

We have begun reforms to push power from the centre to local communities. On policing we are providing for elected police chiefs who will set out the strategic direction of policing across their area and will be democratically accountable.

On education we have ensured that all schools will have the opportunity to become academies, freeing them from local authority control and giving them important new powers over their curriculum, on how the school is run and on teacher recruitment.

There were some very tough moments in 2010 and there are more to come. Not least as the budget squeezes take effect.

The art will be for government, local and national to cut waste and find efficiencies. If we do that then we can face 2011 with some confidence.