Another quick word Minister...


"Minister, could you spare a moment?"

"Ah, yes, of course, Cuthbert isn't it? From the Institute of justifiying privitisation of state assets with a thin veneer of massively oversimplified economic nonsense?"

"Yes Minister, the very institute you founded."

"Great, great, what can I help you with today?"

"Well it seems some of the public are starting to notice problems with our school reforms"

"That's easily fixed. You know the drill. Say "you don't accept that" whenever facts are provided. Phone up the friendly journalists, you know the ones who don't point out that you work for a think tank created by the very minister who is in trouble....actually even better, get Tobes on. He'll be treated as an independent expert even though we pay him £90k to promote the system."

"But Minister, I think we might have gone a little far with some of the latest changes..."

"Go on"

"Well, I think it might soon become clear that when parents don't like what is happening in their local school they have no chance of redress"

"Honestly Cuthbert, is that it? Did we not create a "grass-roots" parent led group?"

"The one with no parents on? Made up entirely of people already working at a senior level within academies and free schools?"

"Yes."

"Well obviously they are still writing in support of everything we are doing."

*Smirk appears on minister's face*

"And they are still raising all those donations from the public to keep the campaign going?"

*Laughter and back slapping*

"Very good minister, very good. Well there is just one last thing that has been bothering us at the Institute"

"What is it?"

"It's just that we were going through some of our old copies of your speeches, and, well there is no delicate way of putting this minister......"

"Please, do go on"

"You talked a lot about how you wanted to give power back to communities, get the state out the way and let innovation thrive?"

"Quite right too"

"And how for too long the people who knew best, parents and teachers and heads, had been sidelined in favour of crushing centralised control"

"I did, didn't I. Bloody good speeches if you ask me"

"They were Minister, they were. It is just that, well we just wondered.....it is just we seem to have made it quite centralised, and parents and local communities don't actually have any choice. They pay for a school to be built but we choose who gets to run it. They don't even get to have a say in how it is run. Just last week we had that sick bucket guy all over the news, we did the whole routine about how the feckless poor were to blame for their feral kids, the speech about how we were increasing choice...."

"Yes if they don't like it they can go to the other school in town"

"They can indeed minister...only"

"Only what, I presume there is another school, in fact I know there is, I approved it last year. Cost millions to open, must check on the numbers going at some point"

"Yes, only, well that school was opened by the one of our most successful Trusts, and we allowed them to take over St Sick Buckets. And now they are closing St Sick Buckets, moving the free school to the site, and renaming the free school St Sick Buckets Charter Academy Free School"

"I don't really follow"

"So we've told parents they had a choice if they didn't like their children being tasered for not nodding in unison, only the alternative school was run by the same people, and they've now closed it"

"Presumably the parents who don't agree with the decisions have been called "bad parents" on national TV and the twitter groups have described any resistance as "hysterics from the tin foil hate brigade?"

"Of course Minister."

"Well that will have to do. Look Cuthbert. One thing you'll have to learn pretty quickly if you want to progress is that we really don't mind "producer capture" and all the other things I've described in the past as being one step from the gulags. We don't mind as long as the right people are in control. And at the moment there are. We've got a third of the schools in the country, billions in spending, in control of the right sort of people."

"So, just carry on and don't think too much about the hypocrisy?"

"I can see you'll do very well here young man, very well"




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