The NUT won't be a Conservative government's only 'enemy within'

Until recently George Bridges was one of David Cameron's principal advisers.  On the eve of the NUT strike and shortly after their recent conference when, yet again, they adopted extremist positions, George Bridges has described Britain's leading teachers' union as "the enemy within":

"Politics, not education, drives many in the NUT. Just like Arthur Scargill, some of its activists appear to care more about class war than class discipline.  How they loved this year's conference - "one of the most Left-wing ever", gloated Socialist Worker.  The high point: a debate on whether to ban military recruitment in schools. The resolution called for "peace to be embedded in the curriculum", and a summit of teachers "including the Stop the War Coalition" to advise on military recruitment.  If we are to raise standards in education, we have to break the NUT's grip on schools.  The union is already mobilising to fight the Government's academies programme, because it is "an attempt to restructure state education along 'market' principles"."

George Bridges sets out a four point plan for overcoming the NUT - including making the important distinction that any conflict is with NUT extremists - not teachers in general.  The public sector unions have grown fat under Labour.  George is right to identify them as a serious opponent of the reforms that are necessary for improving education although David Cameron would be wise to avoid anything like the language used in this article.  David Cameron will, however, need a strategy for tackling the likely enemies of a Tory government.  The NUT won't be the only foe.  Labour may well be weak in the early months/ years of a Conservative government but leading the opposition will be the quangoes stuffed, over ten years, with Labour appointees and the Welsh and Scottish political classes.

Read George Bridge's full article.

Comments

[Mr Angry]

George Bridges is right, perhaps the greatest failing of the Thatcher years was not taking on the NUT and the teacher training establishment which are left wing to their very core.

The appalling state of our education system and the damage that that is doing to our children's life chances are a direct result of the entrenched left wing dogmatism of this part of the public sector and for the sake of all of our children, and of future generations, a Conservative Government MUST address this challenge in a swift, effective and robust manner.

[Tanuki]

The NUT - like the BMA - are representatives of the provider vested-interest. It should be our position to instinctively side with the consumer/purchaser/funder of products and services not with the incumbent provider.

[Tony Makara]

The trades unions need to be de-politicized. However such a process can only come about by making unions truly representative of their membership. The average non-political member is by inclination less motivated than the ideologically motivated activists, who through their energy and dedication to their cause, end up taking over trades unions. Therein lies the problem. How to get the non-political to get involved in the trades union movement and sideline those who use the union movement for political ends.

[Adam in London]

Please. Trying to find new ways to re-live the 80s is just sad. Reminds of washed up Communists pining for the summer of '68.

In what way does the NUT control anything? First off it's got to compete with the other teaching unions - NASUWT, PAT, and NAHT. Secondly, teachers not turning up to work is annoying and inconvenient but in no way on the same scale as miners not mining when the nations power stations are all coal-fired. The NUT cannot bring down the government. If you don't like their ideas - don't implement them. Simple. Job done.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

We should work with the very many moderate, but small, unions. The big extremist ones, like the NUT, need to be smashed.

[a-tracy]

"Secondly, teachers not turning up to work is annoying and inconvenient but in no way on the same scale as miners not mining when the nations power stations are all coal-fired"
You've obviously not got children in years 11, 12 and 13, there's only four and a half weeks before these children finish school/6th form - they've got to concentrate on finishing all the topics before they leave for revision and exams. I hope that some of these striking teachers have got children in these years and what goes around comes around. If they all striked in six or seven weeks time they wouldn't affect these children's exam prospects.

[Erica]

The most powerful and dangerous opponent of a new conservative government will be the BBC.There will be few empty champagne bottles in the corridors of Broadcasting House on the morning following a conservative victory.Whereas the Labour Party is bankrupt the socialists at the BBC have unlimited resources courtesy of the licence fee payer.The answer is to expose them to market forces as quickly as possible.

[Hardcore Conservative]

There are a couple of major differences between the NUT and NUM.

The miners were a group of decent and honourable men who were the salt of the earth, the sort who have laid down their lives for this country over the years. Their livelihoods were threatened and they believed absolutely in their union leadership, but were very badly let down by them, Scargill in particular. These were truly “lions led by donkeys”. If a miner wanted to stand up to the NUM leadership the government was sympathetic and the law reflected this. In addition the threat of coal shortages was clear and contingencies were made.

The NUT is altogether a different and much more serious proposition. Many teachers, the PC Marxist left-wing nutters excepted, are probably decent people who have little sympathy with PC ideology. However, the ideology that they are forced to teach and which prevails in the classroom is very dangerous. The nutters ensure that the curriculum reflects their world view. Once you have control of young people’s minds and condition them from primary school to university, anything is possible. Hence the obsession with children’s rights. We already have cases in this country of children “reporting” their parents for infringement of left-wing ideology. Good little Maoists and Marxists each and every one of them. I am sure the nutters are so proud of them.

Of course, any teacher who wishes to stand up to this ideology will be committing career suicide (like any public sector worker). The government who is both sympathetic and promotes the nutters world view, will stand by and even collude in the ruination of the anti-nutter individual, perhaps by force of law.

This party needs to communicate directly with the decent majority of teachers, while making sure that there are the robust mechanisms in place to dismantle the system that allows this poison to flourish. That is of course if our party leadership are not themselves sympathetic to the cause of the nutters.

Time will tell.

[passing leftie]

The NUT are striking very straightforwardly over pay. They are making no other demands. This has been brewing for a long time, and is not heavy-handed left-wing agitation. They are a small union representing their members.

Industrial action is a legitimate right, and they are entitled to their one-day stoppage, regardless of whether you agree with them or not. I assume you support the governments tough stance on pay?

[David Belchamber]

Why is the NUT "entitled" to its one-day stoppage, passing leftie? Have they exhausted all the usual steps in negotiation?
Do they consider the inconvenience caused to parents who have to make alternative arrangements to look after their children? Do they consider the impact on education if there are several stoppages?
One would like to consider teaching a profession but the annual conference of the NUT is hardly likely to enhance those teachers' credentials, though I fully realise that the other unions are much more responsible.
I suppose the only good served by the NUT's protest (what happened to one day off each week they were demanding as well?) is to underline the mendacity of the PM's claim that the CPI represents inflation i.e. about 2.5%.
The NUT is demanding something in line with the RPI, as they claim that the 2.45% offered is below inflation.

[Annabel Herriott]

Wont the Conservative Government be able to Unstuff these quangos from their leftie-ness? Abolish the ones that are truly not needed, and inject a little democracy into the few that we may need?

[mike clarke]

Annabel Herriott @ 22.01 you are far, far to moderate; abolish the bloody lot!

[Thatcherite]

Education vouchers, redeemable against private school fees and materials for homeschooling, will smash the NUT and the comprehensive indoctrination system.

[Yet Another Anon]

The answer to this is to ban industrial action, to transfer all state schools to private charities limited by guarantee and allow each to charge school fees (with a national low interest loans scheme to provide at least a minimum level of funding to ensure poor parents can afford to send their children to school, repayable in the same way as Student Loans) and to set the pay of employees.

Central Government thus would be completely removed from setting teachers pay, the same could apply in the NHS as well with the NHS broken up between private charities limited by guarantee with treatment charged for and low interest loans available in a similar way.

[passing leftie]

Why is the NUT "entitled" to its one-day stoppage, passing leftie? Have they exhausted all the usual steps in negotiation?

Yes, based on recent history they appear to have done.

Do they consider the inconvenience caused to parents who have to make alternative arrangements to look after their children? Do they consider the impact on education if there are several stoppages?

Yes, I'm sure they have. I am looking after one such child tomorrow.

I suppose the only good served by the NUT's protest (what happened to one day off each week they were demanding as well?) is to underline the mendacity of the PM's claim that the CPI represents inflation i.e. about 2.5%.
The NUT is demanding something in line with the RPI, as they claim that the 2.45% offered is below inflation.

I'm glad you support their pay claim.

[Patrick Pepper]

Hidden deep in George Bridges' justified assault on the NUT is another nail which he hits right on the head, when he reminds the Tory leadership that "in the Nineties, Conservative councils were no less obstructive than others towards the creation of grant-maintained schools, just more covert about it." He could have gone on to say that in the early 2000s, Conservative councils were anything but covert in their open destruction of the party's free schools policy, which was a logical progression of the grant-maintained concept and a flagship policy of then leader William Hague and (before there are cries of "lurch to the right!") his shadow education secretary Theresa May. What was clear for all to see was that Tory councillors will pay lip service to the ideas of freedom of choice, lower taxes and smaller government, only as long as these things relate to central government and not to their own little empires in local government. That is why so many Tory councils have just sent council tax up and up and up since taking power, glibly blaming Labour in Whitehall and doing dash-all to try and reduce it themselves. That is why it is often Tory councils which seem most keen to impose yet more charges upon us for the privilege of doing their own job for them and sorting out our rubbish. That is why Essex County leader Lord Hanningfield - one of the prime culprits behind the scenes in the destruction of the Free Schools policy - was able recently to draw the breathtaking conclusion, for a Tory, that "this is exactly what local government should be doing" as he proposed to add a chain of post offices to his own little empire. Funny notion of small government in Essex County Hall, that's for sure. These days, the phrase "Conservative councillor" is too often an oxymoron. Therein lies a literal "enemy within" for the next Tory government to tackle, whenever it comes.