Monday, September 18, 2006
Mr Milburn is now about choice.
I'm always delighted to see every so often a Labour minister actually admits to sharing the reality of most people's views, even though as a Party they are too afraid to commit to it. Last week Alan Milburn gave a speech to the Institute of Directors where he challenged the New Labour project to de-centralise and devolve power to the lowest possible level in order to give people the power to exercise real choice. A nice prospect, but come on, will the power crazed "centralists" of new labour and their obsession with spin, or the old Labour Socialist die hards ever release their grip? I doubt it, and for 2 reasons. Firstly the New Labour project is riddled with spin. Let go of control from the centre and you can't exercise control over the news cycle and you can't get local authorities and QUANGOS to stay "on message". Equally the old Labour tendencies need to have centralist planning and control as the very oxygen they breathe. Deprive them of the ability to set quotas and targets and suck money out of the economy through high taxation to be re-distributed to their pet projects and the simply don't know what to do! Of course Leapards don't change their spots, so all the New Labour project amounts to is a leaner, slightly better looking, body built with Old Labour DNA.
Mr Milburn argued that more choice is essential, especially in education if we are to provide the means for true social mobility by way of higher school standards. Yet it was Labour that got rid of the Assisted Places scheme that enabled the brightest children from the poorest families to attend fee paying schools. It has been Labour that has set targets upon targets to be recorded with endless, mindless data that takes teachers away from concentrating on what they are there to do, namely teach. It has been Labour that has set the cultural tone in our schools away from selection, streaming, and thus teaching according to ability, just look at the sustained attacks on our few remaining Grammar Schools. I'm just not swayed by the arguments that they are devisive in a community because they select the academically more able when there are viable alternatives that can be offered to communities through proper vocational and technical training if only Labour could ditch its sacred cow that all children are created equal and must be taught to the level of the lowest common denominator. It's bigotry of the worst kind. Perhaps if Mr Prescott had tried a bit harder and passed his 11 plus he and his ilk would be less hell bent on smashing the Grammar School system like a spoilt child who's bored with his toys.
Mr Milburn is correct to muse on how likely he would be to rise from council estate to cabinet minister without good schooling. How wrong he is to pretend that Labour have ditched their ages-run bigotry against selective education. The truth is that it is a self-selected elite from some of Britain's most expensive schools that are pulling up the ladder of social mobility behind them. Remember our PM was educated at Fettes, and Dianne Abbot, that most firebrand of left-wing MPs sent her son to the City of London School, in spite of her relentless attacks on private education before her son's schooling became a matter of personal choice. Do as I say, not as I do.
Very soon we Conservatives will be campaiging to save the NHS. Bigger and fewer is better we are being told. Not if your local District General Hospital's A&E services are about to be cut in favour of a regional centre of excellence 30-something miles away it isn't! Where's the choice in that (as Hobson might have asked)?
Don't think the Lib Dems are any better! More tax, more promises, but less delivered on time and on cost. What choice do Olney and Emberton parents have when the new school campus was so obviously, and woefully, behind schedule in the face of furious denials from the Lib Dems that anything was wrong, just weeks before they announced that our children would be bussed to neighbouring schools this term? Oh, and the delays are worse than feared! When, eventually, the school does open it's doors you can bet I will be doing all I can to ensure that there will be real choice of transport (we await a decision on whether children in Emberton and Sherington will get a free shuttle bus service up and down the treacherous A509) and that parents who wish to send their children to the new school are given every opportunity to do so.
It all begins with a clear understanding of the needs of the community, effective budgeting, and good oversight of project management. Ultimately the buck for that particular fiasco has to stop with the ruling Lib Dems in council as they are trying to be all things to all people (so long as that's not Tory) and are loosing sight of what it is that they exist to deliver.
Back to national politics, what Mr Milburn's speech is really all about is attempting to tie Gordon Brown's hands before his coronation as Emperor, sorry, Prime Minister on BLiar's departure. I wouldn't trust New Labour to give me true choice as far as I could throw it. As for Mr Milburn and his cohort, the only choice I wish to see them exercise on my behalf is which way out of office they will choose to go.
Mr Milburn argued that more choice is essential, especially in education if we are to provide the means for true social mobility by way of higher school standards. Yet it was Labour that got rid of the Assisted Places scheme that enabled the brightest children from the poorest families to attend fee paying schools. It has been Labour that has set targets upon targets to be recorded with endless, mindless data that takes teachers away from concentrating on what they are there to do, namely teach. It has been Labour that has set the cultural tone in our schools away from selection, streaming, and thus teaching according to ability, just look at the sustained attacks on our few remaining Grammar Schools. I'm just not swayed by the arguments that they are devisive in a community because they select the academically more able when there are viable alternatives that can be offered to communities through proper vocational and technical training if only Labour could ditch its sacred cow that all children are created equal and must be taught to the level of the lowest common denominator. It's bigotry of the worst kind. Perhaps if Mr Prescott had tried a bit harder and passed his 11 plus he and his ilk would be less hell bent on smashing the Grammar School system like a spoilt child who's bored with his toys.
Mr Milburn is correct to muse on how likely he would be to rise from council estate to cabinet minister without good schooling. How wrong he is to pretend that Labour have ditched their ages-run bigotry against selective education. The truth is that it is a self-selected elite from some of Britain's most expensive schools that are pulling up the ladder of social mobility behind them. Remember our PM was educated at Fettes, and Dianne Abbot, that most firebrand of left-wing MPs sent her son to the City of London School, in spite of her relentless attacks on private education before her son's schooling became a matter of personal choice. Do as I say, not as I do.
Very soon we Conservatives will be campaiging to save the NHS. Bigger and fewer is better we are being told. Not if your local District General Hospital's A&E services are about to be cut in favour of a regional centre of excellence 30-something miles away it isn't! Where's the choice in that (as Hobson might have asked)?
Don't think the Lib Dems are any better! More tax, more promises, but less delivered on time and on cost. What choice do Olney and Emberton parents have when the new school campus was so obviously, and woefully, behind schedule in the face of furious denials from the Lib Dems that anything was wrong, just weeks before they announced that our children would be bussed to neighbouring schools this term? Oh, and the delays are worse than feared! When, eventually, the school does open it's doors you can bet I will be doing all I can to ensure that there will be real choice of transport (we await a decision on whether children in Emberton and Sherington will get a free shuttle bus service up and down the treacherous A509) and that parents who wish to send their children to the new school are given every opportunity to do so.
It all begins with a clear understanding of the needs of the community, effective budgeting, and good oversight of project management. Ultimately the buck for that particular fiasco has to stop with the ruling Lib Dems in council as they are trying to be all things to all people (so long as that's not Tory) and are loosing sight of what it is that they exist to deliver.
Back to national politics, what Mr Milburn's speech is really all about is attempting to tie Gordon Brown's hands before his coronation as Emperor, sorry, Prime Minister on BLiar's departure. I wouldn't trust New Labour to give me true choice as far as I could throw it. As for Mr Milburn and his cohort, the only choice I wish to see them exercise on my behalf is which way out of office they will choose to go.
# posted by Sherington Tory @ 12:10 PM 
