Phillipson isn't a victim of sexism, she's just useless
All governments mess up. But why is Labour so chronically incapable of accepting responsibility for the choices it makes? Everything is always someone else's fault: nearly a year into the Starmer administration our economic torpor is still the Tories' doing. So are the record boat crossings, legal migration, defence spending – as though Labour ever had any of the answers to these problems.
If this is true collectively, it's even more so at the individual level. Bridget Phillipson's cheerleaders – yes, there are some – are now crying 'sexism' following rumours the Education Secretary may lose her portfolio in a reshuffle. Boo hoo. It is deeply cynical when politicians and their supporters retreat into gender politics to defend their own incompetence and duff policies. On Newsnight this week Louise Haigh accused Downing Street of 'misogynistic' briefings against 'female northern MPs'. Haigh, as you have probably forgotten, is the former Transport Secretary who was forced to resign after it emerged she pleaded guilty to a fraud offence a decade ago, and who caved into rail union demands without demanding any productivity improvements for taxpayers in return. She is also a female northern MP.
Isn't it more likely these two ministers just aren't very good, than that they are victims of misogynistic smears by the 'boys' of Number 10?
In political and policy terms, Phillipson's record is dismal. She pressed ahead with her tax raid on private schools despite warnings it would lead 100 of them to close. The Education Secretary couldn't even stick to her flimsy rationale that the money raised would drive up standards in the state sector. Amid accusations it was simply another episode of antediluvian class warfare, she haughtily posted on X: 'Our state schools need teachers more than private schools need embossed stationery... Our students need careers advice more than private schools need Astroturf pitches.'
Universities are on the brink of a funding crisis to which she has no solutions (let them fail, I say, but it's hardly good news for the party which gave us the 50 per cent target). The dreadful Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill will strip schools of the freedoms that have been pivotal to their success. Pay, staffing – all would be dragged back under Whitehall's unaccountable control. When the Tories left office, English children were among the best at maths and English in the OECD PISA league tables. Phillipson isn't fixing what is broken, she is taking a wrecking ball to a system that has done more to help kids from lower-income backgrounds than almost any other because it doesn't fit into her deranged worldview.
As for Labour's planned curriculum review, led by 'professor of Education and Social Justice' Becky Francis, it's less focused on excellence than it is conformity to the dumbed-down sensibilities of the Blob. Working-class children are being denied the opportunity to study classics, after Bridget Philistine decided to cut Latin funding halfway through the academic year. Free breakfast clubs are nanny statism in its purest form – expensive, unnecessary, feeding the idea the state would do a better job of parenting than mothers and fathers. Then there was the time Phillipson advocated 'working from home' teachers and tried to dump free speech protections for universities.
The Education Secretary may consider herself heir to Anthony Crosland, the politician most associated with the demise of grammars. Though united in their hostility towards any school that may give some children a better start in life, the similarities end there. Many of us think Crosland was a disaster for education, but at least he wasn't in the pocket of the unions as Phillipson is; on the contrary, he opposed their addiction to strikes and refusal to reform. He was a considerable figure who had his own following and a consistent political position. And he moved on to bigger things. Phillipson is more likely to vanish without trace.
Unfortunately, by then the damage will already have been done.
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