Blair's Climbdown on Schools Doesn't Fool Me

08 Feb 2006
Evening Standard

Like a runaway train, a showdown on the floor of the House of Commons about his education proposals hurtles towards Tony Blair. And the showdown will be with his own backbench MPs. Recent media spin about "negotiations" and a "climbdown" does not alter the inevitability of the coming collision. Many commentators are seduced by Tony Blair's arguments for his education "reforms". This is because they are, to a man (and woman), middleclass Londoners. The "reforms" do have some relevance to London, with our abnormally low percentage of genuine comprehensives (as opposed to glorified secondary moderns) and the high number of parents who flee the state system, like myself. But MPs from outside the M25 are not persuaded that national education policy should be shaped by laments at Islington dinner tables.

Many MPs have professional experience of both education and local government; they will not be easily reconciled to the thinking behind the "reforms". For instance, Tony Blair has convinced himself that local education authorities are the big obstacle to improving standards. But London provides the best example of an LEA - the old Inner London Education Authority (1965-1990) - which in its heyday was internationally famous for innovation and for ironing out the effect on educational provision of the extremes of wealth and poverty in the capital. It is precisely because opposition to Blair's ideas is not some Leftwing conspiracy but is rooted in individual MPs' experiences that it will be so hard to crush.

As for governance, the powers of LEAs and, above all, selection, backbenchers are not convinced that any "climbdown" has actually happened. Ministers have, at best, softened the form of words in the White Paper, but the bottom line is that the admissions code of practice will not prohibit schools interviewing parents and pupils, and there will be no sanctions on those that do. Ministers seem naive about what really goes on at secondary transfer: there are 101 scams that schools will use to cherry-pick children if they are given any elbow room.

So the threat of rebellion is as real as ever. No one seriously imagined that some loyalist MPs touted as rebels were ever actually going to vote against the Bill. Those who do oppose his plans are not doing so simply as a pretext to get rid of Blair. But his threat to resign if the legislation falls is not exactly a disincentive to rebel. And Labour whips are finding it increasingly challenging to manage their flock.

The White Paper actually contains some good things. But all the stage-managed "U-turns" in the world cannot alter the fact that ultimately Blair's thinking about education (as on many other things) is at odds with the deepest instincts of his own party. The surprising thing is not that there is going to be a head-on collision, but that it could have been so long delayed.



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