Education
The Tory high command has to get a grip. Just weeks ago it was considered a certainty that David Cameron would lead his party to victory in the spring. He was treated virtually as a Prime Minister in Waiting. But all that has changed. There have been blunders and muddles and even Tories I talk to are wondering whether this army of management consultants, researchers and marketing advisers are really up to the job. There is more and more talk of a hung parliament, when so little time ago the buzz-word was landslide.
This blog remains impartial but reserves the right to point out fault where it finds it. The latest fiasco is a leaked policy which would evidently take planning permission for new schools away from local authorities and allow schools to be set up anywhere subject only to a yes from the Secretary of State for Education. This is ridiculous. Local democratic institutions must have primacy on such critical matters as where to site schools. We do not want Whitehall’s meddling fingers and barmy initiatives encroaching into every neighbourhood. The idea is to reduce the power of central government, not increase it.
This is very worrying. The Tories under Thatcher had a weakness for bypassing Local Government and centralising decisions. This part of their policy was not a success and the country suffered years of neighbourhood decline as a result. It is beginning to look as if the lesson has not been learned. Whilst in the election campaign so far I have not noticed many new reasons for voting Labour, there seem to be an alarming number piling up for not voting Tory.
I read somewhere that Gordon Brown believed that the Conservatives would come apart at the seams under the pressure of an election campaign. I am beginning to wonder if this time he is right.