POLITICS
How to 'do' education, with Mr Baker in the van
FERDINAND MOUNT
Why do tactless people go into poli- tics? I suppose for the same sort of reason that rude people go into diplomacy and illiterate or ignorant people into journal- ism — an instinct for unsmoothing things. And as often as not, they are right. Has there been a ruder British ambassador since the war than Gladwyn Jebb, or a better one? Has any politician dropped more bricks than Keith Joseph, or made more people think? Even his errors are instructive, in fact particularly his errors. The debris he leaves behind is as rich as a hoard of Hittite pottery. 'Marvellous man but a terrible politician,' was one senior minister's epitaph. Well, that depends on what you think politicians are for. On the whole, I am afraid, Sir Keith's departure stirs a sensation of relief among his col- leagues. The sound of breaking crockery has made them nervous. By contrast, Mr Kenneth Baker arrives at the Department of Education with a perfect parlourmaid's reference: 'I am sure you will find Baker has a very safe pair of hands, ma'am.'
Mr Nicholas Ridley, promoted from Transport to Environment, has a very different reputation. It is not so much that he drops things. He is surprisingly deft. The question of the Third London Airport, which had been embarrassing governments since the propeller age, was mysteriously solved by Mr Ridley, I am still not quite sure how. The answer still seems to be Stansted, but also not-Stansted.
What is thought to be wrong with Mr Ridley is that he gets up people's noses, largely because his voice is emitted down his own. It is a thin, sneering sort of voice, suitable for playing Sir Mulberry Hawk. Mr Ridley also has a name for following arguments through to their logical conclu- sions. However, despite this dubious repu- tation, he is unlikely to cement over the Green Belt. Nor do I think that he would have said on television, as Lord Young did, that 'the country has never had as a good a time as it has today' — a superb and possibly unique example of the banana- skin retread.
Mr Ridley's promotion does, however, add to the acidity content of the Govern- ment. Mrs Thatcher and the Chief Whip, Mr John Wakeham, have responded to the enhanced debating reputation of the Labour front bench by bringing to the fore those ministers who can be relied on to put the boot in the right place. It is worth recalling that Mr Tebbit, Mr Lawson and Mr Ridley first booked their places in Mrs Thatcher's squad by supplying her with ammunition for Prime Minister's question time when she was Leader of the Opposi- tion. Mr John MacGregor was made Chief Secretary to the Treasury not only because he is Scotch and can add and subtract but also because he was considered a terrier of a debater. And indeed, he has successfully sunk his teeth in Mr Hattersley's trouserleg and clung on grimly. The question of how much Labour's programme will cost is one of the few scares which the Conservatives have had any luck with during these dismal months.
Limited as it is, this is clearly a by- election reshuffle, a quick response to Ryedale and West Derbyshire. 'Now they want us to do something else,' Mr Tebbit told Mr John Mortimer in these pages last week. 'It's a question of her leadership when her aims aren't clearly defined.' When people understand what she is up to, they regard her as a great leader; when they don't, she is a bossypants. On this can-do view of politics, Mrs Thatcher has `done' the Falklands, the trade unions, inflation and Ireland. Now she is to `do' education, with Mr Baker leading the van.
Actually, this is something of an illusion. The Government's education policy is more or less formed already whether you like it or not. Mr Baker is there mostly to finish it off and give it a high gloss, much as he did, quite effectively, with rate-capping and the abolition of the GLC and the Metropolitan Counties. All he needs is a little extra money to lubricate the arrange- ments.
The policy seems so mysterious because its authors have stumbled upon it partly by accident while looking for something rather different. Forget vouchers and Crown Schools, and think instead of Arnold — Weinstock not the Doctor. What Sir Keith Joseph and Lord Young have gradually drifted towards is a system not unlike the fashionable recipe for run- ning a huge and diverse industrial com- pany: decentralise the branch factories into `profit centres', but keep a close and continuous check on their results. Thus schools are to have their own budgets and manage themselves day by day; governing bodies are to be dominated by teachers and parents, not by politicians. At the same time, more and more of the funds for LEA schools and colleges will be earmarked by Whitehall for specific purposes: technical and vocational courses, further education courses, perhaps even books and equip- ment. Schools will be forced to follow a national core curriculum, and their exam results will be closely scrutinised. Teachers themselves will be bound by a national contract laying down their professional obligations as well as their pay structure.
All this means a reversal of the educa- tional consensus which dates back to the 1944 Butler Act, perhaps even to the 1902 Balfour Act. That consensus was characterised by a wilful vagueness and looseness of definition, primarily designed to bring the church schools within the state system but without treading on their toes. This tactfulness reached its peak in 1959 with the virtual abolition of specific gov- ernment grants, in deference to the sensibi- lities of the local authorities which had become almost as touchy as the churches had been before them. So delicate had this amour-propre become that there was quite a fuss when Sir Keith proposed that he should regain the power to dispense perso- nally a minuscule grant of one per cent or even a half per cent of total national expenditure on education. This tradition of public expenditure without public scrutiny (the obverse vice of taxation without repre- sentation) has turned out to be the curse of British education. And it could be ended only by treading on toes, quite hard. Tactlessness has its uses. There is then not much prospect of parents obtaining the sort of choice envis- aged by a voucher system, that is, the right to opt out and send their children else- where without having to pay full fees. But in theory at any rate, there is the prospect of decent national minimum standards of both academic and vocational achieve- ment. A rather Frenchified system, in fact. Mr Tebbit may be quite right in believing that most parents would be happy With that. Who, after all, are we to object to a little Frenchifying when, according to, a report by the indefatigable S. J. Prais, building industry trainees in France are taught Hugo and Baudelaire as well as bricklaying to the highest standards?
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