William Hague's prediction is coming true

Women's Institute members excepted, at the start of the Labour years nearly every charity, businessman or other social leader was fearful of saying anything negative about Labour.

That's all changed now.

It was William Hague who said that the public would go through a number of phases in its relationship with Labour, ending in contempt*.  We're close to that now.

Read this PDF of a letter from the Independent Academies Association to Labour ministers Jim Knight and Ed Balls. It drips with anger and frustration. The letter doesn't hold back from attacking the Government's increasing meddling in Academies:

"Your proposals, and the concomitant encroachment on the independent status of Academies, seriously impact upon the ability of sponsors, governors and principals to lead and manage their institutions effectively and efficiently, placing at risk the transformational change in the education system the programme was designed to facilitate."

Thank goodness Michael Gove is going to smash planning rules and other bureaucracy to make it much easier to set up new independent state schools that parents can switch to and transfer the state per-pupil funding, while also tearing up the current system of teacher pay and conditions.  If David Cameron holds his nerve and lets Gove loose, this will change the face of Britain and consign much of the debate of the last twenty years to the history books.

Tim Montgomerie

* Can anyone give me the exact quote, circa 1999?

5.30pm: Thanks to readers who found the quote (from 1999): "For when I spoke to you in this hall two years ago I said that New Labour would bring first fascination, then admiration, then disillusionment and finally contempt. At that stage the admiration was running high; now the disillusionment is beginning; and mark my words, they are not so far away from contempt." The contempt has taken a little longer than WH predicted but it has come!

Comments

[Stewart Geddes]

We must be brave here. There must be no way that Local authorities, the GTC or any other vested interest must have the ability to torpedo the ability of new schools to innovate and deliver education appropriate to their target market.

This will mean that some schools will NOT offer academic courses, they will offer education to those who see no value in education. That will mean that traditional schooling goes out the window and is replaced by practical hands on training, which to all intents and purposes will be a broad based apprenticeship scheme offering training, in e.g. Plumbing, Electricians, Carpentry, car mechanics and building.

This may well mean that we have to tear up regulations that prevent youngsters receiving practical work experience with tradesmen etc.

There can be no obstacles. Anything that gets in the way must be removed.

[GeorgeR]

I think, from memory, if you look at Hague's party conference speech from 2000 you might get the full quote.

[David_at_Home]

Tim,

It was in his speech to the Tory Party Conference in October 1999. See here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/468183.stm

"The forces of Conservatism that will be keeping our nation free and proud and independent long after he and his cronies are written off by history as people without principle, purpose, belief or conviction.For when I spoke to you in this hall two years ago I said that New Labour would bring first fascination, then admiration, then disillusionment and finally contempt. At that stage the admiration was running high; now the disillusionment is beginning; and mark my words, they are not so far away from contempt. And so once again it is the Conservative Party that is hand in hand with the British people as we start a new century.For we believe in our country. We believe in a free and independent nation. We believe in the United Kingdom."

Good stirring stuff. I used to like William Hague back in those days, even as I voted for UKIP!

[JGS]

The 1999 speech is at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/468183.stm

[griswold]

Lost in translation. What is the IAA saying?

[Kevin]

What Hague may not have realised is that the contempt for New Labour would coincide with contempt for the Lib Dems and Conservatives as well. All three main parties are currently despised by the electorate for many reasons, chiefly their desire to hand over more power to the EU but also the silence about increasing erosions of civil liberties, profligate fiddling of expenses, the list goes on.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the summer as the the population may finally square up to all three parties who at present represent a common enemy.

[Tim Montgomerie]

Thanks folks. I've updated the original post.

[Stop_Common_Purpose]

Contempt does not even begin to describe the way I feel about Fabian New Labour.

[Victor, NW Kent]

I watched Michael Gove talking on the Apprenticeship Bill and it is rare to find any politician so completely in command of his subject. He also has very specific views on the future of academies.
I hope that he will not be switched into other posts for some years as he will have a vitally important job to do when the Tories get into power. He needs to reform almost everything about our state educational system so that it conforms to common-sense.
We have had a bewildering succession of Schools Ministers under various names during Labour's reign - too numerous even to mention. Education, education, education became unimportant as the Education portfolio never became anything other than a stepping stone, usually after failure, to some other ministry.

[Iain]

I see William Hague is worrying himself silly about B Mohammed's welfare, and prepared to jeopardise our intelligence relationship with the US, for someone who isn't a British citizen, who over stayed his welcome here, chose to become resident of Pakistan and Afghanistan and has family in Ethiopia and the US.

Isn't there one politician in Westminster prepared to ask why the bloody hell we are spending a fortune to bring this person here? And should question why Human Rights Lawyers are so keen to get him into the UK, is it because they get a sniff of the mother load of financial damages they can sue for, and the only country so soft in the head they would allow such a person in our country so the Human Rights Lawyers can launch speculative legal actions against the British tax payer!

[Robert Eve]

Well said Iain at 17:50.

[Matthew Reynolds]

I am waiting for Michael Gove to unleash market forces & end the socialist LEA's power to destroy peoples life-chances. It sickens me that The Guardian readers who back bog-standard LEA run schools send their own children to private schools while opposing voucher schemes that would ensure that less wealthy people had the same educational choice that many rich liberal lefties choose to use.

The liberal left are not for ordinary working people - they love the client state as it traps people in poverty & dependency in-order to sustain the New Labour government. As Richard Littlejohn points out New Labour are not the Party of Keir Hardy but chancer's on the take. If they cared about poor children getting on in life they would copy the Swedish Socialists and bring in school vouchers.

The left on schooling always say :" Do as I say but not as I do." While Michael Gove's school choice agenda proves that Lady Thatcher was right to say:' The facts of life invariably turn out to be Tory.'

I do hope that David Cameron truly cares about our children's schooling - if he does he can destroy a vestige of socialism that has ruined too many lives (i.e. LEA's).

If we want to slash QUANGO's down to size to fund less public borrowing then closing LEA's might be a good idea....

[strapworld]

Well said Iain, I am sick and tired of my country being the World's dustbin.

There is no smoke without fire!

William Hague just blows hot and cold. Get some steel in your backbone man. This man should be sent back from where he was born.

I wonder what Hague meant by "We believe in a free and independent nation. We believe in the United Kingdom."

Conservative Home should seek clarification from William Hague, how can he believe in this and the EU?

[David_at_Home]

I agree with [email protected]

Here is a flavour of what Tommy Atkins is thinking about Binyam Mohamed:

http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/t=117195/postdays=0/postorder=asc/start=0.html

[John Moss]

Blair and Blunkett scrapped GM schools, then re-invented them with the Academy programme when they realised that this was a terrible mistake. Brown never liked GM schools and wasn't best pleased about Academies and has used his henchman, Balls to emasculate them.

This has nothing to do with education and all to do with class war as this quote from the letter shows.

How many of the predecessor schools were failing their communities because they had allowed themselves to enter into a culture of excuse and blame? Is that a situation to which government wishes to return? If so, then pursuing the current course is likely to lead our country back to its failures of several years ago. So much for 21st Century Schools and a ‘World Class’ education system."

[Dontmakemelaugh in Oz Down Under]

Regretfully, Hague's speech could and no doubt will refer also to the Conservative Party in the not to distant future.

"Well said Iain at 17:50".

Posted by: Robert Eve | February 23, 2009 at 18:09

Seconded and well said.

There is a notice affixed to some Australian waste paper bins: "Don't be a tosser". It could be a great political slogan - the trouble is you could not tell the difference or to which party it refers to.

[A Reformed Labour Voter]

I for one certainly went through a journey with 'New Labour'.

I was a Party member in the '80's but left because of the blatant disregard for internal democracy.

However, I became an optimistic supporter of shiny 'New Labour'. This turned to contempt with Blair's lies to push through his Iraq War in 2003.

Then I thought, what other lies have I swallowed and Hey Presto! I realised that Brown's economic hubris would result in an almighty nemesis.

I had always disliked the Nanny State, the endless Town Hall Regulation, the PC Brigade, the multi-cultural fascists - all part of the lefty 'army'.

My whole family (all former Labour voters) now realise that they have been had. And all now support the Conservative Party.

And all we need is an election to record this contempt...

[Ross Warren]

"However, I became an optimistic supporter of shiny 'New Labour'. This turned to contempt with Blair's lies to push through his Iraq War in 2003."

I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until the same moment. The dodgy dossier that they used to justify an unjustifiable morally wrong war killed any lingering respect I had for them and the Nulabour project. The slide into an intrusive nanny state was always a possibility with Labour, but even I was surprised at how willing their were to erode our civil rights. My biggest regret is that they have survived so long. Contempt is excatly the feeling I have for Labour and their slide into Stalinism.

[Conservative Homer]

Downright hatred would sum up my attitude to labour and all theyve done to this country more than mere contempt!

[David Bean]

Iain makes an interesting point, but may I note for the protection of other readers whose command of English may be led astray that the proper experssion is 'mother lode', not 'mother load' - the reference is to mining, not mass.

[Iain]

'mother lode', not 'mother load'

Thanks having never seen it written down I hadn't realised it was 'lode' but that's hardly and excuse for my written English is abysmal at the best of times.

But thinking a little more about the reason why the Human Rights Lawyers were so keen to bring Mr Mohammed back to the UK the more convinced I am that it is wholly about launching some speculative legal actions against the British tax payer. After all Pakistan and Afghanistan where he would feel culturally at home, and where he claims he was tortured have no money. Ethiopia where he could pursue his family life, usually claimed as a trump card by asylum lawyers, also don't have any money. The US where he could also pursue his family life, and who he claims were the instigators of his torture, wouldn't be so soft in the head to countenance anyone suing them. So that leaves the UK, the country with some money but also so soft headed they would pay him to sue us!