Councils will hate enforced transparency. Then love it.

Local governments now have to publish all items of spending over £500. This does cost some money to implement, and in some cases it is cruelly exposing the weakness of authorities' financial systems. They fear the public won't understand some items of legitimate spending and that the publication of salaries will either prompt cheating or make it impossible to get good people. But those councils that have made the leap to full transparency say they have discovered all kinds of potential savings along the way.

The cost of living is going to become a big political issue.

Inflation is high, and interest rates are going to go up at some point. This, plus the increase in VAT, means the cost of living will become a political issue and a problem for many regulated industries. The UK is planning to spend £500 billion on infrastructure over the next decade. In good times the plan was to load that cost onto bills, charges and ticket prices. Can people pay, or will papers be full of stories about outrageous bills?

We will end up with some kind of carbon tax.

Across Europe, governments are introducing carbon taxes. The main motive isn't green, but to shore up trashed public finances. The coalition has talked about a floor price for carbon. Introducing a new levy should prompt policy-makers to slash back the thicket of overlapping, conflicting policies. If we are only prepared to pay £4 per tonne of carbon saved under one policy, why does another offer a subsidy of £440 a tonne? Sorting out this mess could reduce emissions at a lower cost.

The 'Post-Bureaucratic Age' will be a success.

The free school revolution and GP commissioning are about using choice to drive up standards. Where choice can't work, we can still improve accountability, for example through elected oversight of the police. If we free up data about spending and publish crime maps we give people the tools to put pressure on policy-makers. And if we give people data on their energy use, or pollution by companies, we give them the tools to solve problems directly. It's a terrible name, but a good idea.

The political row over 'fairness' will continue, and will get more philosophical.

Gordon Brown conflated 'fairness' and progressivity. The coalition has advanced quite different ideas about fairness: the idea that fairness is about people getting their just deserts, and that a fair society is one in which people's life chances are not determined by the accident of birth. Big philosophical disagreements are moving centre stage for the first time since the 1970s.