Last week I suggested to the leader of the House, that as Liberal Democrats and Conservative ministers now spend their time rubbishing each other, it might be better if future parliamentary business were organised so that government time were divided between the two parties to give both sufficient time to differentiate themselves from each other.

The government have quickly adopted my suggestion: next week there will two days of debate on House of Lords reform which has been arranged to allow Liberal Democrat ministers to speak on Monday and Conservative ministers to speak on Tuesday. It will be interesting to monitor the differences of approach from one day to the next.

We learnt this week that Network Rail, a publicly funded body, is planning to pay millions out in bonuses to senior managers. Government decisions mean that rail passengers are facing annual fare rises of 11 per cent a year at a time when people are struggling to make ends meet. It is simply unacceptable for Network Rail to pay out millions in bonuses for top managers. Six months ago Justine Greening, transport secretary, promised to appoint a public interest director, yet she has failed to do so. The transport secretary has the power to stop Network Rail bosses paying themselves massive bonuses at their AGM on 19 July. People across the country will be watching closely to ensure that the government will block Network Rail’s plans.

It took half a million people signing a petition objecting to the government’s proposal to flog off England’s forests to the highest bidders to set up an independent inquiry on the issue. The government’s U-turn on the issue started a trend. It’s been U-turning on policy ever since.

The inquiry report was published yesterday and today I asked the leader of the House to confirm that the government has now dropped its plans to sell off 15 per cent of English forests and instead to set out plans to protect and secure the future of our forests.

While the government asked a bishop to hold an independent inquiry into the future of forests, it refuses to have an independent inquiry into the banking scandal.

•    On Monday the government was against holding any inquiry
•    Then it was in favour of a parliamentary inquiry but against a parliamentary vote
•    Then the government was in favour of a parliamentary inquiry, in favour of a parliamentary vote but against an independent judicial inquiry

The government has had three different positions in three days. The British people want an independent judge-led inquiry; the only people opposing an independent judge-led inquiry are government MPs and the bankers themselves.

Not only is the government protecting bankers by opposing an independent inquiry but they are watering down the proposals from the Vickers report. On Tuesday Martin Wolf, the FT economist and a member of the Vickers commission, described the government’s decision not to implement the recommendation on high-risk derivative trading as ‘really quite dangerous’. Today the leader of the House failed to explain why the government is watering down the Vickers commission’s recommendations!

Finally, I noticed this week that my opposite number, the leader of the House has surged up the recent ConservativeHome league table of cabinet ministers. He is now effectively in the premier league of cabinet ministers. I suggested he take some time to give the part-time partisan chancellor who has presided over a double-dip recession some tips.

Not suprisingly the chancellor has slumped to the third division.

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Angela Eagle is MP for Wallasey, shadow leader of the Commons and writes the weekly Business of Parliament column for Progress. She tweets @AngelaEagle