Exam board insists A-level Politics students give left-wing answers

By Mark Wallace
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The left wing leanings of parts of the educational establishment have long been obvious - and plenty more have been drawn out by the hysterical opposition to Michael Gove's Free School reforms. 

The nature of the politics curriculum itself hasn't yet been explored, though. Today, the Telegraph features a must-read piece by 18-year-old A-level pupil Carola Binney, who reveals quite how skewed politics courses have become.

The full piece is here, but here are a few choice extracts:

"...what the exam board Edexcel has to say on the subject of Conservative ideology in its most recent A-level Government and Politics syllabus is downright scandalous. Alongside some recognisable Tory tenets – such as “reform is preferable to revolution” – we were taught that the Conservative viewpoint consists of a “fear of diversity” and support for “social and state authoritarianism”."

Not only does conservatism get an officially-sanctioned kicking, socialism gets an easy ride:

"The equivalent entry on socialism contains such feel-good phrases as “social stability and cohesion, social justice, happiness and personal development” and doesn’t get any darker than a perfunctory mention of “conflict as a motor of history”. Which one would you pick?"

Making teachers deliver such biased and partial ideological pictures is bad enough, but pupils sitting the exams have to produce answers to fit such a skewed world-view, too. Helpfully, the exam board publish lists of arguments which will receive marks:

"Not one of the five suggestions given as a potential answer to the question “Why has the Coalition government tried to reform the benefits system?” mentions improving lives by freeing people from the welfare trap; four are variations on “cutting costs”. The marking scheme for the question “ 'The Coalition government’s deficit-reduction programme goes too far, too fast. Discuss” provides nine bullet points in support and one against: hardly a discussion."

As I've written before, there are encouraging signs that younger voters are more supportive of conservative principles, particularly when it comes to public spending and the welfare state. It seems that the exam boards, as well as the teaching unions, are doing their best to counteract that shift with biased curricula like this.

Labour Shadow Education Minister argues for the abolition of private schools

By Matthew Barrett
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Stephen Twigg, a Blairite reformer, was appointed to the Shadow Education brief in Ed Miliband's last reshuffle. As a former Education Minister who helped the drive for academy schools in the New Labour years, it was hoped his appointment might signal Ed Miliband's support for the Coalition's Free Schools programme. 

Indeed, Twigg said earlier this month:

"On free schools, I am saying that we need to apply a set of tests, that we are not going to take an absolute policy of opposing them. The tests should be: will the school raise standards for pupils and parents, will it contribute to a narrowing of the achievement gap between rich and poor and what is the wider impact of that school?"

Unfortunately, any credibility that Twigg may have in his brief will be undermined by the class war, anti-rich sentiments of his deputy, Kevin Brennan (pictured above), who last night spoke in favour of abolishing private schools - a proposal last seen in Labour's 1983 manifesto, aka the "longest suicide note in history".

Brennan was speaking at the Oxford Union, where he proposed the motion "This House Would Abolish Private Schools". Brennan had previously spoken in favour of the same motion in his debut speech to the Oxford Union - as a student.

The New Statesman's "Plan B" suggestions to George Osborne would be a manifesto for economic ruin

By Matthew Barrett
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The New Statesman magazine has a big economic story in this week's edition, which seeks to suggest a Plan B for George Osborne. The NS' Alice Gribbin writes: "nine of the world's leading economists -- including a Nobel prize winner, one of the Chancellor's own advisers and three former members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) -- write open letters to the Chancellor, George Osborne, urging him to adopt alternative and radical policies to stimulate growth and create jobs."

Let's see what they propose:

• Christopher Pissarides: "Cutting VAT back to 17.5 per cent, or reducing National Insurance contributions for those on low incomes, will revive job creation and reduce unemployment. "
• Sushil Wadhwani: "One good place to start is with the textbook example of printing money to finance consumption - sending every adult in the country a voucher that can be spent in the next three months."
• Jeffrey Sachs (an advisor to George Osborne): "I am strongly supporting the call for a Financial Transactions Tax, or FTT, which I believe would add efficiency to the global financial system by reducing destabilising speculation."
• David Blanchflower: "I suggest you increase the number of university places by 100,000 at once - the universities have a capacity. You could even insist that the extra places be primarily in science and engineering, which would help future growth. Second, give a tax holiday for two years on employer and employee National Insurance contributions for anyone under the age of 25."
• Lord Skidelsky: "We need a proper national investment bank, with more capital and the ability to raise private money ... You should use part of the proceeds of the sale of government shares in bailed-out banks to increase the capitalisation of the national investment bank."
• Jonathan Portes: "...reverse the damaging restrictions the government has introduced on skilled immigrants and students from outside the European Union."
• Ann Pettifor: "We need public works programmes that will mobilise a "carbon army" of "green-collar workers" and offer major incentive to environmentally friendly businesses."
• George Magnus: "The Bank of England could get involved in direct lending to SMEs and to the government, so that the latter could fund infrastructure and other programmes to boost employment."
• Christopher Allsopp: "My preference would be public investment for infrastructure, which is sorely needed and could be financed, currently, at negative real interest rates. How about a recovery fund, financed by index-linked gilts?"

So who exactly were those supposedly impartial economists attacking the Government yesterday?

By Jonathan Isaby
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Yesterday the Observer splashed with the headline "George Osborne plan isn't working, say top UK economists" on the back of a letter attacking the Government's strategy for cutting the deficit. 

Today the Labour ginger group Compass is trumpeting the fact that it co-ordinated the letter and further delving into the background of the signatories reveals that a large number of the signatories are either not economists or partisan Lefties - or both...