Cameron's trump policy

Many on this site attack the Cameron project as 'policy lite'. For them, today's speech by Michael Gove should be cheering. He analyses the terrible failure of the current system - Eton produces more kids with three As at A Level than the comprehensive system manages with the entire cohort of 75,000 Free School Meal kids; independent schools produce more three As than every comprehensive combined.  He analyses the dumbing down of exams and the important switch by top private schools from state-controlled exams to the internaitonal GCSE.

The section at the end summarises Gove's policies...

• New powers for teachers to control violent behaviour.
• New powers for heads over pay and conditions which will break the grip of Unions.
• New powers for all state schools to do top quality international exams
• More control of universities over exams, which will expose and reverse dumbing down and break the power of the QCA.
• Big shake-ups for all the quangos and the Whitehall structure.
• A genuine system of school choice with organisations and parents free to set up new schools (and radical changes to planning law and building regs to make this possible)
• Parents free to control the taxpayers' money spent on their child so they can switch it to one of the new charter schools, and radical freedoms for these schools outside the grip of the state...

This combination of policies will change Britain fundamentally - and in ways that will be very hard for Labour to reverse - and is perhaps the single most important reason for Cameron victory.

Tim Montgomerie

> Download PDFof Gove speech.