Cameron condemns Ed Balls' "crazy" attack on faith schools

Just interviewed by Adam Boulton for his Sunday Live programme, Tory leader David Cameron attacked Ed Balls' confrontation with faith schools as "crazy".  Some of the best schools in the country were faith schools, he said, and under the Conservatives they could expand if parents wished.

Mr Cameron also told Sky viewers that he supported tighter classification of cannabis.  He admitted that he was wrong to support the relaxation of classification when he was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee.  The potency of cannabis as used today and its mental health side-effects had, he said, persuaded him to support a tougher approach.

Mr Cameron said he did not agree with Boris Johnson on an amnesty for illegal immigrants.  The danger, he said, was that one anmesty only encouraged more immigration and further amnesties.

He declined to pick a candidate for the US Presidential race but heaped praise on John McCain as an inspiring man who was on the right side of the free trade debate.

The Conservative leader said that he was encouraged by the latest opinion poll putting the Conservatives 11% ahead of Labour but that there was "not an ounce of complacency" within the Tory team about the outcome of the next General Election.  Voters were weary of a great new dawn after jumping into Blair's arms in 1997.  The Conservatives need to show that they had the right response to Britain's two great challenges: economic uncertainty and social breakdown.

PS Why on earth did Sky bother to ask the public for questions to put to Mr Cameron?  55 questions were left on the Boulton & Co blog but only one of those questions was asked by our reckoning.

Comments

[Sammy Finn]

It doesn't reflect well on Adam Boulton that he only used one question from a viewer.

[David]

Shame he's shifted his position on drugs.

[James Maskell]

So its crazy to attack faith schools, which have a selective admissions policy and yet its alright to describe supporters of grammar schools as "delusional"? I miss the distinction between the two. Is it perhaps that Cameron is sending a daughter to a faith school and has no connection to a grammar school?

Rank hypocrisy by Cameron.

[Matthew]

Come off it James. Cause-effect blindness methinks. No doubt he wanted to associate himself with a faith school because he thinks they are good, rather than deciding he likes faith schools because his daugher happens to go to one. Think things over before you post rants!

[Anne]

This is a big error by Cameron. Many parents privately detest the fact that they are being forced to support faith (the weasily synonym for religious) schools simply because it is the only way they can get their children a good education. Down the proverbial pub and around the proverbial dinner party table most people dislike the idea of the state supporting religious indoctrination for their children. But such people are even more suspicious that any attempt by Labour to modify such schools will only represent class-inspired gerrymandering and lower standards: hence the notional support for religious schools. Cameron needs to see the wood for the trees. Being seen to back as a matter of principle rather than pragmatism something so many people find distasteful is a missed opportunity and will lose him support in the long term

[Conand]

Anne, he is being pragmatic, the faith schools are usually good schools. Let's support them rather than attack them as Balls does.
The fear of 'religious indoctrination' is absurdly overplayed.

I echo the point about the Boulton Blog questions. It seems the only person allowed to put questions to David is Brown at PMQs, very strange.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Didn't see the interview but agree wholeheartedly with everything Cameron has been reported as saying here. Ed Balls attack on faith schools is as Martin Ivens in the Sunday Times suggests based on evidence which is as flimsy as hell.It was also wrongheaded as faith schools invariably seem to perform better than standard state schools. As the vast majority as even Balls would have to admit are not selective at all with their intakes so he should be asking himself why they do so much better.

[Sean Fear]

Anne, I think rather more parents who send their children to faith schools are pleased that they exist, and like their ethos, than resent them.

[Jack Cade]

Ed Balls attack on Successful Schools: Mugababe's attack on Successful Farming. Both socialists focused on engineering social chaos.

[Oscar Miller]

Cameron's support for faith schools is a totally a coherent aspect of Tory education policy developed by Michael Gove - giving an opportunity for a grass roots approach for the community to determine the kind of schools they want to develop. There's absolutely nothing hypocritical or misguided about it. It's the right approach in terms of ideas and in practice. Ed Balls attack on faith schools is positively sinister. He clearly has a plan to keep the shell of a Blairite choice agenda while imposing Statist, doctrinaire regulations. I think Balls is a really dangerous character.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Mr. Balls is, reportedly, a formidable politician, with a brain the size of a planet - I wonder which planet? Pluto perhaps?

Mr. Balls does give the impression of being 'driven', driven to penalising schools within the state sector which - at the moment - which show pride in their achievements. Those achievements being to bring out the best in their pupils: once Mr. Balls has worked out, how, I am sure he will be as zealous in his attacks on the private sector of education!

The truly amazing part of all this is that, right across the country there are plenty of UNDER ACHIEVING state schools, churning out children, apparently, who can hardly read and write; these schools have, again apparently had tax-payers money earmarked in their direction for eleven years - or supposedly so, but the results have been miniscule, despite the spin and statistics. One would think that this is the area that Mr. Balls should be concentrating on?

However, what Mr. Balls is indicating is that it is so much easier to penalize and knock what IS WORKING, and very well, and providing a good education, than to improve the schools in the area of education which is his major responsibility!!