David Vaiani 4/02/10
As the general election approaches and the polls begin to narrow, the outcome of the battle for Downing Street no longer looks like a foregone conclusion. A few months ago, the Tories appeared to be home and dry. If the election were held tomorrow, however, it would be a rather close-run thing.
The Tory leadership is aware of this mounting problem, but the main protagonists are divided over what needs to be done to haul the party over the finishing line. There are those, such as George Osborne, who argue that the Tories need to set out in clearer terms how voting Tory would materially improve the lives of voters. Others, such as Steve Hilton, believe that David Cameron should emulate President Obama’s campaign strategy by focusing entirely on the question of ‘change’ without actually setting out any specific policies. There is a sound argument to be made for both of these positions. My own view, however, is that the Tories need to work harder to etch out a clear and distinct vision for the country. At present, it appears to me that far too many people do not have a firm idea of what David Cameron might do if he should become Prime Minister after the next general election.
So, looking at the Tories’ current set of policies, what is the main reason for why people should vote Tory? Whenever my non-Tory friends (yes, I do have some) ask me what the party stands for, I immediately reach for education, for it is in this critical area that the Tories have produced some of their most radical thinking over the past few years. The Tory case for education reform is a strong one. In a nutshell it revolves around the introduction of a Swedish School model based on parental choice, a shift in power from LEAs to parents and teachers, a return to traditional standards of discipline in classrooms, and a move towards synthetic phonics. All of these policy initiatives are, in my view, extremely welcome and will enable the party to reverse some of the disasters heaped upon the education system during more than 12 years of New Labour rule.
The current comprehensive system, which is based on an arbitrary ‘post code lottery’ method of allocating school places, is manifestly unfair. If you are unfortunate enough to live in a poor area filled with sub-standard schools, you will only be able to receive a good education if your parents have the financial resources to move to a superior catchment area or, if they are able to send you to a private school. So, even if you are bright and able, you will be stuck in a poor school simply by virtue of your parents’ lack of financial clout.
Although I am a staunch supporter of grammar schools (as the best way to solve the above mentioned problem), I am willing to accept that the Swedish schools model will help to create a greater number of good schools with a concomitant increase in the amount of choice available to parents. If nothing else, the hope is that groups of parents and other interested bodies will work together to build new and better schools. So, if you are looking for a positive reason for why you ought to vote Tory, you need to look no further than the party’s policies for school reform.
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