David Vaiani (11/02/10)

In last week’s blog I wrote about the Tories’ policy for school reform and explained that it was the main reason to vote Tory at the General Election. But should the Tories be offering more? Are they short of a vision for a better future? Is there a common thread which runs through the party’s policy commitments? Well, for my own part, I think the Tories ought to focus all their efforts on the twin issues of tackling the deficit and aspiration. As for how these goals can be translated into a set of policies, I would propose the following programme:

On tackling the deficit, I would like us to make it clear that not a single government department will be ring-fenced from public spending cuts, but that crucial frontline services will not be harmed. It should be perfectly possible to make this argument, without  frightening the horses.

On education, our mantra must focus on aspiration. We should make the case for independent universities and a commitment to scrap the department for higher education which would liberate funds for scholarships and bursaries for the poor but able. We should also make the case for grammar schools & selective education, and greater  provision for early schooling, as many of the problems regarding social mobility start before the age of five.

On law & order, I would like to see us develop the zero tolerance policies of Gulliani in New York, tougher sentences for serious &  violent criminals, and a strong emphasis on prison reform. Many of the difficulties regarding crime are tied up with the woeful conditions that are to be found in our prisons: they are over-crowded with minor (often non-violent) criminals and there is virtually no effective  policy of rehabilitation.

On housing & transport, we need to build more affordable homes, even if that means building on green and brown sites. The natural confines of towns and cities must be extended to create new communities. In addition, we need to build more family homes, as opposed to single  unit flats. Finally, we need more high speed railway lines (such as the new Ashford-Euston line) to provide people with quick and easy access between their affordable homes and their places of work. Given the economic climate, we should make it clear that these last two policies constitute an aspiration and that we will enact them once the money is available. But they are two vital priorities, in my view.

I suspect that Tory readers of this blog will be able to come up with their own policies. The key, however, is that a party’s policies should have a common thread running through them. They should provide voters with a distinct vision of what the party wishes to achieve once it finds itself in office. In other words, policies must be put together in such a way that voters are able to recognise and hum along to a popular tune. This lack of vision & direction explains why the Tories are losing ground in the opinion polls.

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.