Has the coalition's opening term been characterised by u-turns and broken promises?

That was the claim of Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne today.

Though Mr Oborne admits he is overstating his case in comparing David Cameron to Alastair Campbell, one could argue that he has also been particularly selective in his portrayal of the promises he sees as broken.

Firstly, many of the 'pledges' he uses as examples, such as the inheritance tax cut, are in the Conservative manifesto but not in the coalition agreement.

True, the coalition document was never put to the voters, but given the way that the Government was formed this has to be the main, if not only, yardstick by which we track pledge delivery.

Looking specifically at coalition document u-turns attacked by Mr Oborne, the raising of age of eligibility for free bus passes has merely been reported in the media, but denied by ministers.

The NHS White Paper can be seen as the kind of healthcare overhaul the coalition had pledged to avoid, and scrapping Primary Care Trusts did make redundant the coalition's promise to introduce elected PCT heads, but  the white paper did make progress on meeting other pledges.

Likewise, the scrapping of ID cards, the cancellation of the Heathrow third runway, a cap on immigration and reforms to both our school and electoral systems are all completed or underway largely as set out in the programme for Government.

Even lower level promises such as the abolition of home information packs, regional spatial strategies and several quangos have all been completed.

It is of course early days for the Government and, come September, Full Fact will be launching an interactive web-based tracker to enable the public to keep tabs on every pledge made in the coalition agreement.

We can only hope Mr Oborne will be one of those using it.