The immediate news agenda as I write is dominated by the tale of two Tory resignations. One is that of Toby Young from the Office for Students. The other that of Justine Greening as Secretary of State for Education. If I am honest I am not a great fan of the politics of either and yet the odd coincidence of the timing of their departures highlights the scale of the malaise hitting the Conservative Party, and with it the politics of this country.
Toby Young has quit because he says the row over his appointment is a ‘distraction' from the ‘vital work of broadening access to higher education and defending academic freedom' that it is claimed that the Office for Students will undertake. All of that is untrue.
Young's appointment was not a distraction: it was a provocation.
And the OfS is not about broadening access to higher education or defending academic freedom: it is all about subjecting universities to the pressure of market forces by threatening to remove their licences to teach if they do not succumb. Young was the perfect ‘gob' to distract attention from the real message. He served his purpose well. His whole life is about promoting the primacy of abuse over reason and of ideology over the politics of need.
Greening resigned because No. 10 did not like her and she would not accept the alternatives they had to offer to make her go. She had no time for grammar schools and the education apartheid that they embrace. And she had seen the disaster of supposed ‘free schools' of the type Young so hopelessly promoted from close up and wanted no more of them.
It is widely reported that the Tories were closing ranks to support Young.
It is as widely reported that those same Tories were opposed to Greening because she had listened to the teaching unions and would not follow the party's line, which is, in effect, opposition to state run education.
Even if I would not want Greening as education secretary because I am no fan of her party it has to be accepted that she was bringing reason to her office. In the process it became clear that she was willing to stand up to what she believed in. Expect a trenchant resignation speech.
In contrast, the favoured Young brought prejudice.
He might have gone but yesterday was one where the divisions in the Conservative Party were made clear. And they are ugly.
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Agreed, and further confirmed by Hunt’s promotion plus Esther McVey back at the DWP. The Tories are like a vermin infestation – once established difficult to eradicate.
I suspect both Young and in particular, McVey, are lightning rods put in place to draw ire towards them and so away from May. As Young has left, so McVey has arrived. I expect to see a very great deal of her in the media, and consequently, less of May.
I agree. The compare and contrast approach to those two events is all too revealing. Watching the ‘changes’ in May’s government is like watching gloom being gathered over reason like a billowing Walt Disney blanket of darkness, the last pale lights, dim as they were, snuffed out. The Conservative (and conservative) agenda against public education has been in active pursuit ever since the ’90s attempt to rig ballots to ‘free schools from LEA control’ by so-called ‘opting out’ – a poison which parents did not want and which Blair only found new means of furthering. Ideology is constantly replacing rational thought or evaluation. How odd, now, that a Tory government makes me think of Czech novels from the 1960s. What would Orwell have made of today?
I followed Greening’s time at DfID with interest, as I work with the sector – she succeeded Andrew Mitchell who had a genuine interest in development, which she did not share to start with. To her credit, she seemed to listen, learn and park her prejudices and gained some credibility. She was of course followed by the bigoted and disastrous Patel
It sounds as though Greening did the same at Education, being prepared to listen, learn and adapt, which does not fit with the narrow ideological prejudices of today’s Tories. As Talleyrand said of the Bourbons, they are learning nothing and forgetting nothing.
I am giving Greening credit: I think she tried to be a good minister even if I disagree with her basic philosophy
It’s a key attribute of *most* fellow Southampton graduates in my experience – they listen and don’t completely close their minds to evidence…… even that which contradicts their current Party narrative (see also John Denham).