Blue Labour strike again

The Willetts speech on education is causing waves in Tory circles, as they vie with each other for who has the best idea for the standard (or perhaps two-model) offering that should be provided to other people's children. It's yet another example of how Camoronism is about out-Labouring Labour. They don't have a problem with so much being funded and run by the state, they just think they can do it better than Labour, whether (in the case of education) that's with grammars or City Academies.

If politicians and punters are busy arguing about how best the government can run essential services, the economic battle is not over, Oliver, and if we're now in a socio-centric paradigm, we need to go back to the econo-centric one before the new paradigm bankrupts us. If City Academies are the answer to improving standards for all, David, where is the money going to come from? And how are you going to "re-yuppify the teaching profession", "get more male teachers into primary schools", and "stop the drift away from crunchy subjects", Boris? That's a wish-list, not a set of policies, unless you add "and this is how we're going to deliver that...."

The answer, of course, is that we have to free schools, like hospitals and trains, from government (local or central) control. Let the management run things as they think best, and live or die by the sword. Successful models will quickly be copied. Unsuccessful models will fail. We will discover what doesn't work. We have to get away from the standardisation of the lowest common denominator, which is the hallmark of state-controlled activities.