This is the response of David Willetts’ office to the Centre for Policy Studies’ criticisms of his grammar schools speech, submitted exclusively to ConservativeHome: "Ideally, we would do research on grammar schools from the older data when grammars were about and we saw them abolished to look at the discontinuities across time and between regions. […]
I’ve just received a couple of reports from tonight’s 1922 meeting of Conservative MPs. One contact described it as "the stormiest meeting" he could remember. Ed Vaizey and Ian Taylor defended David Willetts but a dozen other MPs – led by Salisbury’s Robert Key and joined, surprisingly, by Hugh Robertson – condemned today’s grammar schools […]
At the time of writing Gordon Brown needs the backing of just one more MP to be certain of succeeding Tony Blair as Labour leader and our Prime Minister. The BBC asks if that is good or bad for him. My hunch is it’s bad. He’s not going to get the coverage a horse race […]
Mark Field, MP for Cities of London and Westminster, argues that our education system needs more elitism and choice to achieve excellence. At our best the Conservatives are the party of aspiration, opportunity and hope. We believe in choice because choice helps raise standards for all. Conservatives promote excellence, rather than equality. We want to […]
"Thanks to everyone for your comments. I’m certainly under no illusion how strongly people feel about grammar schools, and I must emphasise we are not launching an attack on those that still exist. It’s precisely because we care so much about unblocking stalled social mobility and giving kids from poorer backgrounds the educational opportunities they […]
There’s real fury about today’s grammar schools policy amongst the MPs who I have spoken to today. Roger Gale MP has just been on News 24 describing the policy as a move from Conservatism to socialism. A bit much, Mr Gale, but I have been interviewed for BBC1, Radio 4, Sky News and Channel 4 […]
Tony Blair is on his farewell visit to Washington so John Prescott is, perhaps for the last time, standing in for him. William Hague takes David Cameron’s place and Vincent Cable Ming Campbell’s. The encounter takes place in a chamber full of MPs wearing big yellow ribbons in support of the McCann family. William Hague’s […]
David Cameron spent Monday and Tuesday working as a classroom assistant at a school in Hull. It did not get off to a good start: "The day starts badly, for me at least. Helping register a class of 13 year olds, no-one – and I mean literally no one – has even heard of the […]
It’s the main story on this morning’s Today programme and features in many of this morning’s newspapers: David Willetts’ belief that grammar schools don’t help the poor and that we’d be better to increase the number of City Academies. A leader in The Telegraph is pretty mean about the speech – accusing ‘Two Brains Willetts’ […]
Dr Andrew Lilico is Managing Director of Europe Economics, a member of the IEA/Sunday Times Shadow Monetary Policy Committee. Why did you oppose joining the euro? I’ll tell you why I did. It was because, although I was in favour of a Single European State (SES), I was not in favour of Britain being part […]
In an unguarded moment the BBC Radio Five Live’s Jane Garvey remembers how the BBC greeted Labour’s 1997 victory with champagne. Listen here. And courtesy of Biased BBC, here is the transcript: "Ah, well – I had been up for most of the night but I was doing this Five Live breakfast programme with our […]
This morning’s Populus poll for The Times suggests a similar narrowing of the Tory advantage of Labour as was indicated by Sunday’s YouGov survey. The Blair resignation effect has so far overwhelmed the halo effect of the Tories’ local election results and the Conservative lead is halved to 4%. The bad news for Gordon Brown […]
John Hayes, MP for South Holland and The Deepings and is Shadow Minister for Vocational Education, argues that there is a lot more to Tony Blair’s demise than Iraq. Tony Blair has dominated British politics. Over a dozen years he made the Labour Party electable and the Conservative Party unelectable. In 1997 he effectively ended […]
We’ve already published the results from the April survey that showed rising member satisfaction with David Cameron and for most of the shadow cabinet. We also asked what you thought about the three people who lead the Conservative Party in Europe, Scotland and Wales: Timothy Kirkhope MEP, Annabel Goldie MSP and Nick Bourne AM. Nick […]
Peter Cuthbertson argues that Frank Field was so quick on the uptake with analysing the true root causes of poverty and dependency, that David Cameron should bring him into the next Conservative Cabinet to implement the solutions himself. Even if it comes to office with a healthy majority, when the next Conservative government is formed, […]