The day Britain changed

It's a pretty auspicious day for a nation to change. Not only is it Easter Monday, a slow bank holiday when schools and most offices close and the terrestrial tv stations show movies from years ago in amongst the soaps and the gameshows but it's also April Fools. BMW announced its new pram, with email contact joe.king and Twitter rejoiced in a game of oneupmanship to outdo each other on the silliness of it all.

Good day to bury bad news therefore. Look at the top line - Guardian goggles trailed on page 7. Arf, arf, chortle, chortle. And even more giggles to be had with the main splash. 'For better or worse' wriggles the top line. But 'The day Britain changed' is overall a rather unambiguous statement than first appears, once we read the points to the left and the points to the right. In fact this front page is rather more a call to arms than a for better or worse. Similar in tone to Don McLean's 'the day the music died', it's a line in the sand, a tipping point in the life of the government, and as the article screams, 'the reference point from which everything else will be measured'. On this bank holiday, with the sun shining and the temperature in low single figures, with the vast majority of the country off work and sleeping in, Britain changed. It won't take long to see if The Guardian got it right. Happy Easter Monday and Happy April Fool.