David Cameron and Nick Clegg have both proclaimed that their coalition government signals the start of a new era in which politics will be done differently. Obiter had a taste of just how differently at a media briefing last week.

The press had been called to attend a photocall with the new communities secretary Eric Pickles, housing minister Grant Shapps and Tory TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp for an announcement on home information packs.

Usually these things take place in some kind of conference room at a government department. Not this time. Press were summoned instead to the pavement outside an estate agency in a slightly shabby corner of London’s Battersea. The mandarins had set up a table on the pavement bearing a rather battered model house which, in true Blue Peter style, resembled something ‘they had made earlier’, with sticky tape wound around it. And it was from the roadside that Pickles, just about audible above the heavy traffic noise, announced the scrapping of HIPs. He called on sellers who had saved money by no longer needing a HIP patriotically to spend the cash on paint instead, to boost the economy (B&Q shareh­olders will be delighted). Shapps, who after months of promising to abolish the packs was denied his moment of glory in not getting to make the announcement himself, told the media and bemused passersby that this was the first of many moves to cut away the swaths of ‘pointless red tape’ introduced by Labour. You can see what’s coming next. Ramming the point home in a visual demonstration of the message, Pickles, Shapps and Allsopp, joined by a random home seller, posed for photos around the model house before dramatically tearing away the tape that bound it.

All in all, the most bizarre method of announcing government policy that Obiter has witnessed for a long while. Is this the shape of things to come? And what next? Can we expect to see justice secretary Ken Clarke announcing the latest legal aid cuts from a prison cell, or chancellor George Osborne outlining banking reforms from the queue at his local cashpoint? We can only wait and see.