Britannia Radio

Saturday, 8th May 2010

It’s obvious that Brown’s the impediment, why doesn’t Labour strike?

DAVID BLACKBURN 12:07pm

Well, Brown the Statesman was a shirt-lived incarnation. The BBC reports that Brown and Clegg exchanged ‘angry words’ yesterday evening and that Brown delivered a characteristic private political conversation: ‘a diatribe laced with threats’.

Clegg and Brown simply cannot work together. This inability to put aside personal differences is far from magnanimous of both men, but it is plain that Brown no longer commands the authority to shape the nation’s future. If there’s no hope of a Lib-Lab coalition with Brown at the helm, then the knives will be sharpening - again. From Labour’s perspective, delaying...

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Friday, 7th May 2010

A deal that would kill Gove’s agenda at birth

FRASER NELSON 5:44pm

While both the Conservatives and LibDems support the idea of Swedish schools, a Lib-Con deal could kill the agenda stone dead. David Laws is proposing to allow local authorities to have the power to veto new schools – which would, in effect, mean no rollout. As we all know, this could strangle the Gove school agenda at birth.

Local authorities, whether Labour or Tory, will hate the idea of competition in the provision of education. The local authorities and teachers’ unions are incredibly powerful, and defeated Thatcher, Adonis and Blair. They have also nobbled the LibDems to the extent that, I understand, David Laws believes that he could not get rid of the local authority veto. His party, and the special interests it represents, would not let him. Local Authorities currently enjoy monopoly control over the provision of state education. The Swedish example worked because planning permission was given centrally, by a licensing board which rejected the (many) local authorities who complained.

“Please, we’re losing pupils in existing schools’ the local authorities would whinge. “Don’t let these popular schools open!” The Swedish system sides with the parents: if the school providers complain, then they should shape up. But Labour and the LibDems side with the local authorities. Both would poison the Gove reforms, given half the chance.  And they may well be given that chance. Stay tuned.