Michael Gove MP: Why traditional education is a work of social justice – one that I'm striving to deliver

Michael Gove is the Secretary of State for Education. This is the second of two extracts from an article which originally appeared in Standpoint magazine. You can read part one here.

At the moment, access to the best that has been thought and said is restricted to a fortunate few. Because of the dumbing-down of both our exams and school curricula under Labour, children can go through school never having read a novel written before the 20th century, never having read or seen an entire Shakespeare play, never having learned a poem by heart, never having had the chance to appreciate, or play, classical music, never having the chance to learn about the achievements of the greatest scientists and engineers, never having had the chance to play in the competitive sports in which England has long excelled, never being encouraged to engage with anything which is not immediately “relevant” to their lives.

But if all children are told about is what they already know, how will they ever - like Rita - learn better songs to sing?

There is no doubt that most parents have aspirations for their children which are far higher than many of the professionals who condescend to them. The Millennium Cohort Study of 19,000 children born in the UK in 2000-01 recently interviewed mothers about their ambitions for their seven-year-old children. An astonishing 97 per cent of mothers wanted their child to go to university. Whether or not a student decides that university is right for them, the evidence is clear that a proper academic education to the age of 16 is the best way of maximising any child’s chances of success in the future.

Michael Gove MP: Be angry on behalf of those failed by the education system - if we aren't, who will be?

Michael Gove is the Secretary of State for Education. This is the first of two extracts from an article which originally appeared in Standpoint magazine.

Most of the time I don’t think about being adopted. Any more than I think about the colour of my eyes. Or the size of my  feet. It’s all part of who I am—and how I was made. But sometimes it hits you. There’s a moment when you can’t help but think that your life might have been different—very different—if  another family had taken you into their hearts.  

Like the day six years ago when, as Shadow Education Secretary, I was looking at the recently published GCSE performance of schools. One in particular caught my eye. A comprehensive on Merseyside where just 1 per cent of the children had managed to get five C passes at GCSE, including English and maths. Five GCSE passes (including English and maths) is the basic passport any child needs to be eligible for further study or a decent job. It’s the minimum a 16 year old needs to have a decent chance in life. There’s not a single Labour politician, Guardian columnist, trade union general secretary or university professor of education who would conceivably find their child falling short of that standard acceptable. But in that school in Merseyside, 99 out of 100 children failed to acquire even that basic level of knowledge.

What would happen to them, I thought? Who was angry on their behalf? Who cared?

And what would have happened to me if I’d been at that school?

My own, adoptive, parents weren’t wealthy. They’d been accepted to adopt me because their background was similar to my birth mother’s. They were also chosen because they lived a few hours away from her home city of Edinburgh. What, I wondered, if I had been adopted by similarly loving parents who happened to live a few hours south of Edinburgh? On Merseyside? In the catchment area of that school? What chances in life would I have? Would I now be sitting around the Shadow Cabinet table?

Michael Gove urges West to support Israel, not terror

In today's Sunday Telegraph Tim Montgomerie examines whether Britain will back the Palestinian Authority's bid for statehood at the United Nations. Michael Gove, how Education Secretary, is unable to make public comment on the issue but this piece in The Times from 2001 offers many relevant thoughts.

Land for peace is an ancient principle. There is a special place in history for all those who have given an extra mile of territory to avoid further conflict. That place is called Munich.

That we in the West have failed to heed our own history is apparent in the approach we take to the Middle East. Observing the escalation of violence in Israel, with seven dead in the latest suicide bombings, the instinctive prayer is for peace. As it was in the Thirties. And hope therefore fixes on the prospect of "talks". As it did in the Thirties.

So determined are we to see "talks" as the solution, that they are held as the one inviolable good in a wilderness of tears. The prevailing media narrative therefore has "renewed violence threatening the talks", as though they were mutually exclusive antagonists, violence the indivisible evil and talks the quintessential good of this drama.

But the truth about "talks" is that they are the product of violence, not its solvent. Munich was a reward for terror. Indeed the more "successful" talks are, the greater the legitimation for further violence. Once Sudetenland fell, who stood up for Prague?

Michael Gove: The scale of our education challenge is so great that we need urgent reform. On every front.

Michael Gove MP is Secretary of State for Education.

Just before Christmas the most comprehensive survey of global educational achievement ever conducted showed that in the last ten years we have plummeted in the rankings: from 4th to 16th  for science, 7th to 25th for literacy and 8th to 28th for maths. In tests of mathematics, Chinese 15-year-olds are now more than two years ahead of 15-year-olds in this country.

At the same time as we are falling behind other nations, the gap between the opportunities enjoyed by rich students and the chances available to poor students is growing.

What makes this growing inequality worse is that richer children, who have access to the highest performing schools, study rigorous subjects and take internationally respected exams while poorer children have been corralled into subjects and exams that are not widely respected. This is not just unfair, it also means we are denying ourselves the chance to harness all the talent we need to compete economically.

The scale of our education challenge is so great that we need urgent reform. On every front.

First, we must improve the quality of entrants into teaching by recruiting more talented people into the classroom. The best performing nations – like Finland, South Korea and Singapore – recruit their teachers from the top pool of graduates which is why we are reforming teacher training and expanding great schemes like Teach First which attract the brightest and the best into teaching. It's also why we’re reforming the rules on discipline. We know that poor pupil behaviour is the main factor which puts talented people off teaching, which is why we will enhance teachers’ powers to maintain order.

Second, we must give great headteachers more freedom over how they run their schools. The best performing education nations, like Hong Kong and Singapore, devolve power to the frontline. They give heads more freedom over pay, staffing, timetabling, the school day, and spending.  And we are doing the same here. Over 400 good and outstanding secondaries have applied to take up our offer of Academy status with all the freedom that brings. And, in just a few months, over 200 teacher, parent, and charity groups have applied to set up Free Schools. It is absolutely vital that we extend this frontline freedom because it is only by shifting powers from bureaucrats towards parents and professionals that we can create an unstoppable momentum toward higher standards.

Michael Gove: The Conservative plan to improve school standards

Michael Gove is MP for Surrey Heath and Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

Nowhere is the case for reform in this country more urgent than education. In the last ten years we have slipped down the international league tables, with England dropping from 4th in the world for the quality of our science education to 14th, 7th in the world for the quality of children’s literacy to 17th, and 8th in the world for mathematics to 24th.

At the same time the gulf between the educational opportunities enjoyed by the wealthiest and those open to the poorest has grown wider. Every year the poorest children in our schools, those eligible for free school meals, fall further and further behind their contemporaries. In the last year for which we have figures, out of 80,000 children eligible for free school meals just 45 got to Oxford or Cambridge. That is an offence against any idea of equal opportunity, a massive waste of talent, and telling evidence that social mobility has stalled under Labour.

Our teachers are working harder than ever, our students are worked harder than ever, but the system Labour presides over just isn’t working, and it’s the poorest who’re suffering most.

It is because we are seized by the fierce urgency of the need to act now, that we have been outlining a series of policies over the last few days to reform our schools.

We have a comprehensive reform package which will improve discipline; give professionals more freedom from bureaucracy to concentrate on teaching; improve exams to make them more rigorous; open up state education to new providers so we can have a new generation of high quality smaller schools with smaller class sizes on the model of America’s KIPP schools; and overhaul our curriculum.

And last week we outlined the action we will take in each of these areas in more detail.

On discipline

On Sunday, the front of the Express carried our policies on giving teachers more power to deal with violent and disruptive pupils and our plans to protect teachers better - ideas that I repeated that day to Spring Forum in Brighton. Other papers (e.g. the News of the World) reported our new figures showing about 1,000 pupils are expelled or suspended for physical and verbal assaults every school day.

On freeing professionals from bureaucracy

On Monday, the front page of the Telegraph previewed our event with about 200 heads of Outstanding schools at which I announced: a) an immediate Bill to allow the expansion of the Academy programme; b) freedom for all Outstanding schools from Ofsted inspections; c) freedom for all schools to apply for Academy freedoms (i.e. particularly freedom from the National Curriculum and freedom over pay and conditions) with Outstanding schools pre-approved.

On making exams more rigorous

On Tuesday I gave a speech at the Royal Society announcing: a) all state schools will be allowed to do the international GCSE or the old O Level (still set in Cambridge and sat around the world but not Britain) from September 2010; b) we will restore the reputation of A Levels by getting politicians out of the business of writing their content and structure; c) we will rewrite the National Curriculum in English, Maths and Science in the first year, in particular so that all pupils have the chance to study the three separate sciences, which they do not now; d) I raised questions about where we should go next with the Curriculum to keep our country competitive - for example, given the way in which 'normal distribution' and discussion of randomness and prediction permeates every aspect of public policy, should it be included in the GCSE syllabus...? The Telegraph covered the speech on page 1 the next day.

On getting a new generation of high quality smaller schools with smaller class sizes

On Wednesday, the New Schools Network hosted an event for over 200 parents and teachers who had travelled from around the country to discuss our plans in detail. They included:

• The mum of three from Kirklees who has held marches and demonstrations of thousands of people to campaign for a new school for their local community.
• The deputy head teacher from Bedford whose dream has always been to set up a school and can’t understand why this Government won’t let him.
• The group of parents in Wandsworth – officially the bottom of the choice table when it comes to secondary schools – who have had over 1,200 people sign their petition for a new school.
• The Hindu community leader who wants to start Hindu schools across the country.
• The established organisations such as Teach First, Teaching Leaders, and Future Leaders many of whose high quality alumni want to set up their own new schools.

I took questions from an audience that was, fascinatingly, better informed on our school policy than any think tank event I've done in three years. If you were in that room that night you could be in no doubt that there are teacher and parent groups desperate for new schools. This is just the start - the movement is now growing every day at grassroots level. Wednesday’s event was a milestone for school choice.

The BBC ran a piece on the six and ten o’clock news about the event (starts at 16.40 mins in).  The Telegraph ran a big feature on the parents here.

On Thursday, the Spectator published pieces by me and Rachel Wolf, the brilliant founder of the New Schools Network, and hosted a Conference on our policy with some of the foremost experts in the world, who made clear the huge weight of academic evidence for how parent choice improves standards from the Chicago ghetto to Alberta to Sweden. This coincided with us publishing new figures showing how Labour has closed schools and made remaining schools bigger (Mail; Telegraph).

On Friday and Saturday, I did various interviews: the FT explored the role of the private sector in our plans; the Times explored my speech on the Curriculum (story, interview); and CityAM ran a leader on my comments re the financial crisis, statistics and maths education.

The purpose of this week was to show that there is no magic bullet to improve standards in our schools; we need action on a broad front.

We must give teachers the powers they need to keep order. We must extend freedoms particularly over pay and conditions. We must extend school choice to end the scandal of rationing good schools by house price. We must stop politicians devaluing the exam system and we must rewrite the National Curriculum in a way that fits with the global trend of building from dispersed wisdom.

For all those who want more detail of the philosophy and evidence underpinning our approach you can read my speech to the CPS or our Draft Manifesto.

And because I believe in so much in the wisdom of crowds I’d be really interested in any thoughts you have on where we should go next – either posted in the thread below or sent to me via this email address.

Michael Gove MP: Parents should be able to choose schools instead of schools choosing parents

Throughout this week we'll be running our 'A Government Worth Having' series.  Beginning with Michael Gove MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, leading members of David Cameron's frontbench will set out some of the policies that will make a real difference to life in Britain.  Next week we'll be running five articles that will identify where more policy work still needs to be done.

When David Cameron launched our Opportunity Agenda at last year's Conservative Party Conference his aim was to make Britain more socially mobile, to improve education for all and, especially, to give children from poorer families the sort of opportunities currently only available to the rich.

Schools should be engines of social mobility. They should provide the knowledge, and the tools, to enable talented young people to overcome accidents of birth and an inheritance of disadvantage in order to enjoy greater opportunities.

But that just isn't happening in Britain.

We have a schools system which widens the gap between the fortunate and the forgotten, which makes society progressively less fair over time, which deepens our country's divisions.

And Britain is already failing to prepare its citizens for a world economic climate which is growing more competitive, and less forgiving of failure, with every month which passes.

In the most recent PISA surveys – the international league tables of school performance – we fell from 4th to 14th in science, 7th to 17th in literacy, 8th to 24th in maths. We need radical reform.

That's why we've published a green paper outlining, among other reforms, how we can learn from Sweden's education revolution and lower the barriers to more new schools being created.

As a matter of principle we should want more diversity and choice for parents within the state system.

And as a matter of proven fact that choice can help raise standards by generating innovation and allowing competitive pressures to stimulate improvements all round.

Michael Gove MP: Blair's Heir, Blair with Hair or The Blair-Slayer?

This is Michael Gove MP's latest blog from the Cameron Camp.  Paul Goodman MP is posting from the Davis campaign.

In every Tory leadership election since 1990 its been the candidates’
relationship to Margaret Thatcher which has been decisive. But this contest has been different. The frame of reference against which the candidates are now judged is Tony Blair. It may seem ironic that just as Blair’s hegemony over Labour is crumbling, he should be exercising an influence over our leadership election. But how the two candidates have reacted to the Blair factor has been revealing.

From the moment he expressed an interest in standing for the leadership, David Cameron has been compared to Blair by some commentators. The frequency with which the comparison was made at the beginning really revealed only two things. Firstly, the limited historical horizons within which contemporary commentators work. And second, the fact that David Cameron is almost the same age now as Tony Blair was when he became Leader of the Opposition.

On the first point, it is a feature of current political journalism that historical comparisons now don’t reach much further back than 1979. The path the Conservatives have to take back to power is only ever compared with Labour’s journey in the eighties and nineties. So any new Conservative leader is automatically compared only to Foot, Kinnock, Smith or Blair And Blair’s own travails now are only ever really compared to Thatcher’s or Major’s.

I myself reject the superficiality of comparisons between what modern Conservatives have to do, and what new Labour did. At the risk of superficiality myself, Labour’s problems lay in the failure of social democratic ideas in the Seventies, whereas we suffer from some of the consequences of too long a period of success.

If we are to look to history for lessons, then I think we would be better employed looking at how the Conservative party recovered after its defeats in 1905/6, and 1945. And I would commend to all readers of this blog David Willetts’s pamphlet for the CPS, published a good four years ago now, on the party’s differing responses to those challenges.

But if we are to consider recent history the most telling lesson is how much new Labour are prisoners of their on past. Both Blair and Brown are politicians framed by the struggles of Labour in the Seventies and Eighties. That’s one of the reasons for their attachment to European integration. Support for the European cause was the defining mark of moderation for any Labour politician during the party’s Bennite days and even as the European argument has changed, to vindicate scepticism, the Labour leadership still clings to an out-dated model of European development.

The Conservative Party should learn from the dangers of adopting positions struck during different times, when we faced a very different set of challenges. We need to show we have the answers for the emerging problems of the twenty-first century. And that is where I think David Cameron has shown his mettle, in identifying as issues for the next Government, social fracture and family breakdown, environmental degradation and urban regeneration, the need for a pro-growth economic policy to counter global competition, the requirement for an energy policy insulated from short-term shocks and the pressing need for a security policy which apprecaites the scale of the Islamist terror threat.

David Cameron’s emphasis on the long-term is a key point of difference between him and Blair. It’s not the only one, as his speech on Thursday night and article in Sunday’s Telegraph make clear. DC is a natural emancipator whereas TB is an instinctive controller, DC is temperamentally allergic to making policy just to catch headlines, TB loves eye-catching initiatives with which he can be personally associated. DC is a Tory in his DNA. TB has always had an uncomfortable relationship with his party.

But while DC is a wholly different political animal from Blair I want to declare a particular interest. I am happy to concede, personally, that I still see some things to admire in the Prime Minister. And I must stress these are Gove views, not Cameron’s not Osborne’s, and, so far as I know, no-one else’s.

As I wrote in the Times during the run-up to the Iraq War, I think Blair’s role in the War on Terror deserves much more praise than condemnation, I think his instincts on the need to reform the public sector are not ignoble and I believe the impact his private faith has on his political outlook is likely to be a force for good, not a reason for mockery.

I also think Blair has a talent for communicating complex ideas in language which resonates outside the Westminster village. And I sympathise with him in his efforts to do the best by his family in a prurient age.

Of course there are aspects of Blairism, not least its sententious nannying and its disdain for our history, which profoundly irritate me. But I think politics is better when we are honest about both difference, and agreement.

You don’t need to believe your opponent is wrong in every particular to want to defeat him, and indeed if we continually exaggerate the Government’s faults we only end up making ourselves look less impressive.

The best thing we as a party can do towards Blair is do what the country is doing, move on, recognising he’s part of the past. Our task is to show that Conservative ideas respond best to the challenges our people will face in the next ten years. Using market mechanisms to liberating individuals to do good, freeing countries from outdated trans-national structures to improve our world, respecting the dignity of all by resisting the itch to control and regiment, restoring politics to a human scale, these are our values.

It’s time we put them to work on shaping our future.

Michael Gove MP: The Change Alliance

This is Michael Gove's third blog from the Cameron campaign.

The news that ten MPs who’d supported Liam Fox are now backing David Cameron is important not just because it gives David the backing a majority of MPs but also because it signals the breadth of the emerging alliance for change across the party.

During the earlier stages of the leadership campaign some observers tried to pigeonhole the candidates into boxes marked Left and Right. Not only was the exercise unfair to the complexity and depth of all the candidates’ positions, it also glossed over what I considered to be one of the most interesting dynamics in the race – the overlap between the Fox and Cameron positions and the coincidence in the agenda of many of their supporters.

I write as a Cameron supporter from the beginning of this race who also admires people who’ve been in all the leadership campaigns (indeed I am a particular fan of Nick Herbert, David Willetts, Greg Clark and Paul Goodman to name just a few of DD’s impressive supporters).

But nevertheless I found myself increasingly admiring, and agreeing with, many of the arguments put forward by Liam and his supporters throughout this race. Readers of this blog will know that I was delighted to be able to support the Shadow Foreign Secretary’s drive to put human rights at the heart of Conservative Foreign Policy [see PS to this post]. But in my view there is a broader convergence, beyond simply my views, which marks out the Cameron view and the Fox approach as closely aligned. Both candidates have been particularly energetic in arguing for a changed approach to the way in which the Conservative party responds to the new challenges of the 21st century. And I’d like to list just a few below.

(1) Foreign Policy should be Idealist not Realist.

LF’s position here is clear, brave and admirable. DC has also made the need to engage ethically with the rest of the world central to his foreign affairs vision, supporting the Fox view that Tory foreign policy should embrace a commitment to tackling terror, tyranny and the lack of freedom across the globe, not just in those nations where the UK has an “historic” interest. This view of Foreign Policy, which treats Darfur as a more urgent issue even than Zimbabwe, both speaks to a new generation of idealists and is true to the party’s best traditions.

2. Let’s not wobble on the war.

LF deserves great credit for his robust defence of the liberation of Iraq in his party conference speech. It was brave and right. DC has made the case for staying the course in his speech to the FPC and emphasised the folly of opportunistically sniping at the Government when it runs into trouble, but is basically trying to do the right thing. Of course Blair has made many mistakes in Foreign Policy but both LF and DC see the danger in giving any quarter to those who wish the worst on the West.

3. We need a more meritocratic Britain. But that still isn’t enough to heal our broken society.

Both LF and DC have emphasised that our society needs to be more open to talent. But both have also shown they understand that there are many in our society whose needs go beyond just an extension of opportunity. LF’s focus on the mentally ill, and DC’s emphasis on special needs education, are just two examples of their campaigns’ focus on the requirement to help those whose vulnerabilities hold them back from full participation in our society. LF has won support from charities and voluntary bodies for his championing of those left behind. And DC has a long track record of supporting those organisations dedicated to helping the marginalised live with dignity. Some Tories have, in the past, given the impression that all we need to do is remove the barriers to success for “the hard-working” or “strivers” to do our duty by society. LF and DC recognise that social justice demands a commitment to provide support for those who are genuinely disadvantaged.

4. Don’t be afraid of the market.

Both LF and DC recognise that the younger voters have grown up knowing how market mechanisms work, and accepting the role they can play in improving our lives. DC, unlike DD, recognises that resources in higher education will only be allocated rationally if we accept a more market-based system building on top-up fees. Its an insight most younger conservatives instinctively grasp. DD’s opposition to tuition fees, like Michael Howard’s own scepticism, reflects a generational gap. LF is on the same side as that gap as DC. During his time as party chairman he identified a huge potential reservoir of support for the party among those younger voters who had grown up knowing, understanding, and appreciating the liberating power of markets. But these Britons’ experience of the Tory party over the last few years has left them with the impression that we are opportunistic and crusty rather than dynamic and open. Both DC and LF have tried, in their approach, to directly address this problem.

5. Modernising doesn’t mean going soft – it means recognising how the world has changed.

Of all the leadership contenders only LF and DC wanted to properly modernise our European policy. Both recognised that the historic link we had with the EPP was just that – historic. We need to be able to make the case for pro-market, pro-nation state, Atlanticist policies clearly in Europe as well as at home. The challenges of the next century – from global competition to international fundamentalist terror – will not be faced effectively if we defer to positions adopted by continental politicians who are trying to defend an outdated settlement. Modernising our party means modernising our relationships in Europe – something both LF and DC instinctively understood.

Of course there are many people who were attracted to Liam’s candidacy who won’t vote for David Cameron. Their platforms overlap, they’re not identical. But the nature of the overlap is instructive. Both the Fox and Cameron candidacies have been attempts to move the party out of traditional trenches into a closer engagement with the modern world. They’ve both combined a compassionate approach towards the most vulnerable in our society, and across the globe, with tough-mindedness about international challenges. And I believe that a party which makes effective use of both their talents will have forged a powerful alliance for change.

Michael Gove MP: It's the economy, stupid

This is the second of Michael Gove's reports from the Cameron campaign.  Paul Goodman is blogging for Team Davis.

Bill Clinton’s winning message in 1992 was built around the economy. But not restricted to it. The Democrat candidate had a tripartite message - not just “the economy, stupid” but also “change versus more of the same” and “don’t forget healthcare”.

All three messages were crucial to his election. Clinton was running against an incumbent, George Bush senior, who’d succeeded a very successful President only to run into a recession. So the economy was central. But the Democrats weren’t trusted on economic management in the same way as the Republicans. Therefore Clinton had to show that he was a different sort of Democrat when it came to economic policy.

Clinton also had to communicate that he was the change candidate overall - not just a credible alternative to Bush senior but a new kind of Democrat, no longer repeating the party’s failed messages from the past.

And Clinton had to communicate hope - by showing that he was focussed on public service reform. His emphasis on healthcare gave his campaign an optimistic edge which trumped the claims of Bush to be the experienced hand at the tiller.

A winning electoral message depends on maintaining a disciplined adherence to a few core principles, and not being knocked off course by the media. David Cameron has shown throughout his leadership campaign an impressive capacity to set his own agenda, and not be deflected by media, or party, voices, urging him to change course. He won the first round of this process on a clear modernising platform. One he has stuck to.

And central to that platform has been the conviction that Conservatives have to escape the traps we’ve fallen into repeatedly in the past.

We need to recognise that the Conservative Party lost its reputation for effective economic management in 1992 and we have not recovered it since. Indeed Labour’s lead on economic competence is massive. Labour’s position is likely to be challenged in the years ahead as the economic news may worsen for Gordon Brown. But it would be both foolish and weak to expect that Labour’s defects will do our job for us.

And it would also be a mistake to think that our reputation as the party of good economic management will be restored if all we talk about on the economy is tax. We’ve been there, done that, and got the election defeats to show for it. Central to our campaigns in 2001 and 2005 was a proposal to cut tax. And we got biffed both times. Not because tax cuts are wrong. But because they were practically all we talked about on the economy. The Conservative Party has, in the past, acted as thought it believed a policy on tax was an effective substitute for a policy on the economy overall. That’s like trying to win a football match by fielding only one player. Even if he’s Wayne Rooney he can’t do it on his own.

Where George Osborne has been so impressive as Shadow Chancellor has been his success in re-integrating the low-tax argument into a broader economic narrative. As the Sunday Telegraph’s Matthew d’Ancona has pointed out, Tory policy on tax has suffered in the past because we’ve either been seen to be obsessed with the exact percentage of GDP spent by the state, or we’ve been palpably using tax policy as a means of getting votes from particular constituencies (eg pensioners). Tory credibility on tax has suffered because we’ve been seen as one-issue ideologues who rate hitting a specific target for the exact size of the state above any other consideration of what makes a good society, or spivs who see tax as a way of seducing special interests. Instead, we should be setting policy in the national interest.

George Osborne and David Cameron believe that the right policy on tax is to construct a tax system which forms part of a broader economic strategy to increase growth in Britain. That’s why George has set up a tax commission to look at how we can make the tax code simpler and more effective at stimulating growth. Beacuse not all tax cuts have the same supply side effect. Some tax cuts, especially on business, are more likely to stimulate growth than others. Therefore the onus is on those people proposing specific tax cuts now to tell us which cuts will stimulate most growth, and which are being proposed for other reasons.

It’s also necessary for those who are putting a specific figure on tax cuts now to tell us what precise level of Government borrowing they envisage in four years time, what proportion of Government spending they would allocate to debt repayment, and what then would be left for tax cuts or public spending. And public spending on which issues? If money is to be made available for new grammar schools, does that mean a rate of growth in the education budget faster than other departments? If so which will be cut to make up for that? The Home Office? But what about the commitment to build more prisons?

There is a lot to be said for making the case that tax-cuts can play a part in stimulating growth, and asserting that people already pay too much for too little. But saying now which taxes one would cut four years out, and making that the only economic message one has, risks once again damaging the mature case for supply side tax reform.

As well as looking at tax a future Conservative Government must do many other things to help raise the trend rate of growth in the British economy. We need a trade policy agenda which deals with the distorting effect of the EU external tariff and the broader protectionist threat. We need, as David Cameron has already powerfully argued, an engagement with the EU to ensure we regain  control of those policy levers which affect our competitiveness. We need a tougher competition policy to tackle monopoly power in our own economy. We need a pensions policy which helps us deal with future demographic challenges, and the burden they place on public spending. We need a higher education policy based on market principles in which students make rational decisions about degree courses and we can then develop universities which will enable us to compete alongside America. We need a transport policy in which rational market decisions govern road and rail use, and there is more investment in infrastructure to help our manufacturers.

All of these changes, and more, are crucial to developing an economic policy for growth. The right way to stimulate more growth in our economy, with the benefits that would bring us all, is to recognise that such a strategy depends on a low-tax policy, public sector reform and investment in infrastructure, especially education and transport. The Cameron approach to the economy is driven by a belief that Conservative arguments are winning arguments across the board. Its time we moved outside our comfort zone and talked about much more than tax.

Michael Gove MP: Can you ever have too much of a good thing? Not when it's democracy.

This is Michael Gove MP's first post from 'inside the Cameron campaign'.  Yesterday Platform hosted Paul Goodman's blog from the Davis camp and Francis Maude wrote about the election process.

For much of the summer it was fashionable for commentators to assert that our elongated leadership election was exposing us to ridicule. Within the party there were a number of people who wanted to curtail the process, and restrict the franchise, on the basis that a long-drawn-out contest culminating in a ballot of the mass membership would not only generate weeks of hostile media coverage but result in the election of the “wrong” leader.

Well, we’re still six weeks away from the end of this process, so I have to be careful about making any predictions. But the shape of the contest so far seems to me to have proved the pessimists wrong. The length of the leadership election has allowed new ideas to be generated, tested, and take hold. Take for example, Liam Fox’s new emphasis on putting Human Rights at the centre of Conservative foreign policy. Liam was able, during his campaign, to make the case for a more ethical foreign policy on a series of platforms, including at Blackpool, and lay solid groundwork for the establishment of a new Human Rights Commission in the Party. The leadership election gave that initiative, and others, greater media exposure and a wider public airing, helping change perceptions of the party for the better, and giving us a better set of priorities for Government.

If the pessimists were wrong to worry about the length of this process then they were even more profoundly mistaken, in my view, to object to retaining a formal say for every party member through a direct ballot. The Editor of this site, and his allies in the campaign to protect party democracy, have every right to feel vindicated in their judgement. It’s become a commonplace to observe that the Party Conference was a success, but one of the reasons it worked so well has been under-appreciated. Because every leadership contender knew that their future depended on reaching out beyond the Parliamentary party, and the hall, to the tens of thousands of Conservatives outside, they all raised their game. Accountability worked its magic.

In the next six weeks I hope that all party members will use their right to question the candidates, and probe their positions, before making their minds up. Direct democracy in the party has already enhanced this process and can only go on doing so.

On a personal note, I would hope that in the future we can extend the democratic principle to involve more people who care about the strength of the opposition, and want to have a stake in helping build an effective alternative Government. The case for open primaries in helping choose our candidates has been made effectively by Theresa May, Douglas Carswell and others, and it has the potential to involve many more of our fellow citizens in changing the conservative party for the better, rooting us more deeply in the country and broadening our outlook. We could do worse than think about it for the choice of our next London mayoral candidate.

As Paul Goodman quite rightly points out, we need to find new ways of involving citizens in those parts of Britain where Conservative representation is currently poor. With so many of our MPs (guilty M’Lud) representing seats in the South-East we must be open to mechanisms which give all those who empathise with us a more effective voice.

We have a precious opportunity over the next six weeks to make Conservative arguments across the country, on our terms. We can talk to all those who share our values but who may not always have liked our approach in the past. The surest way to put them off, and communicate the impression that we have not changed, is by treating the election as an exclusive conversation or an extension of the Westminster game. The more open we are to engaging the rest of Britain in this process, the better equipped we’ll be to do the right thing in the future.