Liberal Burblings

Archive for July, 2007

When someone is away for a while, and then they come back, you realise how brilliant they are!

David Cameron is launching a major initiative today “to increase discipline in schools”.

All very laudable, except that he has chosen some strange ways of doing it.

-Expelled children’s parents will no longer have the right of appeal to the LEA. But they will be able to appeal to a governors’ panel. The difference is????? Well, Cameron says it will allow headteachers to be “captains of their ship” without being second-guessed by the LEA. So, they will be second-guessed by the governors’ panels instead. Doh.

-Pupil referral units will be closed down because “they are too expensive and don’t work”. Instead the job of looking after expelled pupils will be given to voluntary bodies. Brilliant. I am sure voluntary bodies are really geared up and eager to look after steaming-mad pupils during the long daytime hours. Not.

-Home contracts will be enforced by, in Cameron’s words, not admitting pupils to schools where the pupil’s parents refuse to sign a home contract. Er? That’s not enforcing the home contracts. Enforcing home contracts would require some penalty on the parents. All the parents have to do is sign the home contract and then ignore it – he doesn’t seem to propose any enforcement method if that is done by parents.

-Special school closures will be stopped. Well, given that serious questions have been raised about the experience of closing special schools and integrating pupils in mainstream schools, this may well be a good idea.

David Cameron’s use of his school’s announcement today to start a fight-back has been over-shadowed by his claims that Ali Miraj, a recent critic of his, asked him (Cameron) for a peerage.

David Cameron is building up a formidable band of enemies in the Conservative party. When Sarah Montague on Today put to him his list of recent critics, Cameron gave the old “ad homines” response.

He discounted Lord Kalms because he said Kalms had not given money to the Conservatives during Cameron’s leadership. (That seems a strange argument – sort of chicken and egg, I would have thought). He discounted Ali Miraj’s criticism because he said the man had asked him for a peerage yesterday. And he discounted Graham Brady’s criticism because he said that Brady “had to resign” from the shadow cabinet over Grammar Schools.

This seems a rather unwise strategy. By dismissing Brady in such a way it seems Cameron will fan the flames of rebellion in his party, while also creating a standard bearer for dissent in the shape of Mr Brady.

Former Tory party chairman Lord Saatchi yesterday attacked David Cameron’s leadership and ‘warned that the party’s fortunes were unlikely to improve “until the Conservative party has something compelling to say about the subject that matters – economics” ‘.

This point was put to David Cameron this morning on Today. It was a God-given opportunity for Cameron to set out his economic policy stall. But what did he do instead? Incredibly, he talked exclusively about social breakdown, without mentioning the economy at all!

Unbelievable!

Bill Clinton famously had the sign “It’s the economy, stupid” displayed in his campaign HQ. It seems that David Cameron has a sign saying “It’s social breakdown, stupid”. Except in Cameron’s case he really is stupid, it seems.

I find this utterly baffling. What has told David Cameron that people are more concerned about social breakdown than money in their pocket? Fighting social breakdown is a laudable endeavour, but giving it prominence above the economy seems to be political suicide.

On Today this morning, David Cameron said that it was a “local decision” to put “David Cameron’s Conservatives” on the ballot paper in Ealing Southall. That is strange because I have read local Conservatives criticising that decision and it has been widely reported that Grant Shapps, hardly a local Ealing Southall man, pushed to have such nomclementure on the ballot paper.

David Cameron underpinned his statement by saying boldly that he “believed in localism” – that is why he allowed the local Ealing Southall Tories, he says, to put “David Cameron’s Conservatives” on the ballot paper.

It is strange, then, that his “belief in localism” didn’t go as far as letting the local party choose their own candidate!