We need a proper education industry April 20, 2011 IT is time to harness the profit motive to sort out the UK’s schools. That may sound hopelessly radical – but the seeds of a revolution have already been planted, and the green shoots they are generating remarkably promising. Britain’s current crop of private schools are not all charities. As a report out today from [...]
Pensiveness is mood of the day for Tories October 3, 2010 POLITICAL EDITOR THIS shouldn’t be an annus horribilis for the Tories. For the first time in 13 years, their leader will address the party conference as Prime Minister. The long slog of opposition is, at last, over. And yet things are not quite right. Maybe the party should have gone to Brighton or Bournemouth this [...]
Miliband the elder is Labour’s best chance July 27, 2010 POLITICAL EDITOR THERE are few things duller than a Labour leadership contest. The five rivals have been travelling the length and breadth of the country, delivering exactly the same stump speech at a never-ending series of hustings. It’s a running joke among the contenders that they know each other’s scripts off by heart, not just [...]
It was the Tories wot should’ve won it May 7, 2010 IT was the Tories wot should’ve won it. David Cameron entered this election with huge advantages over his rivals. The party’s coffers were bursting with almost £18m – the maximum that can be spent on a campaign – practically outstripping the Labour and Liberal Democrat war-chests put together. Nearly every newspaper came out in support [...]
The Tory who wants to empower parents and fight the bureaucrats March 7, 2010 TORY activists are a miserable bunch at the moment, and who can blame them? The polls suggest we are on course for a hung parliament, with their party struggling to land blows on a tired, unpopular government. And even if the Conservatives do emerge victorious, there is little in David Cameron’s policy cupboard for the [...]