Sticking up for free schools

Yorkshireblue1

Agree re Justine Greening. She disarmed the audience by referring to her Yorkshire comprehensive education & came across as abnormally normal for a politician.

Alex Gallagher

"Justine Greening was fabulous in attacking Labour and defending the cuts package tonight. Passionate, articulate and unintimidated by the chorus of boos."

But it's the chorus of boos that's significant...

Berni Dickinson

Hi, I was in the audience tonight for the Radio Four's Any Questions. I am an ordinary working women working in the world of state education - educated by the state sector. I work across a partnership of secondary schools in a very deprived area and these schools are so passionate about their young people and wanting the best for them. I am not convinced that the politicians really understand what is needed to drive forward a truely inclusive education reform agenda. It feels like the education agenda is either controlled by the unions or by people who have no idea of what it is like to be in the state sector.

laverda

Government representatives are making a very poor job at communicating the cuts to the public. It is frustrating when ministers are asked why this or that benefit is being cut not to hear them reply that there is not enough money. They should ask the labour supporters questioning them where would they get the money from.

Christine Blower

Interesting blog, Fraser. I don't agree with your interpretation of everything that transpired on Any Questions. What is true is that on the question on Free Schools I was able to offer evidence about how they have worked out elsewhere whereas you had opinions to offer. Remaining polite and civil even when we disagree is,of course, important. Have a good weekend.

Dimoto

A lesson in reality for Mr Nelson.
Hasn't it ever occurred to you, that that programme, (even more than QT), is very heavily rigged ?
Every week, wherever they are, it's the same story.
This is NOT a democratic townhall meeting !
You just dignify the schemers. You would be better off taking a soapbox to speakers corner.

It's actually all good, when you detached media types finally have to feel the rough edge of what has become the norm on the "public service broadcaster".

Did we really need to know that you found Blower "charming" ? Like Ed Balls I suppose.
You and Ian Dale both - you just don't realise what you are dealing with.
This woman is striving to wreck the chances of another generation of children, but not to worry, she's "charming".

It is intensely frustrating that so many Conservatives just refuse to grow a backbone.

AAE

Repeat broadcast is at 1.15pm Saturday on Radio 4 - just in case Fraser's Fans want a lie in!

Armchair

Sadly, the medium is often the message. This Govt. needs more people of a comprehensive background in order to make these very valid points.

And I speak as someone who went to a comp and who is the son of a refugee and an English woman.

Nick

Surely it is repeated at 1 pm not 11 am ?

TomTom

The NUT is a Left Front and probably hated by most teachers who simply want legal protection when accused of all sorts by disaffected children or bullying management. It is probably very lonely in a classroom with horrible children and knowing the headteacher will hang you out to dry...the Union is the only life-raft. Find teachers another !

Roger Davies

And we continue to churn out ignorant and illiterate kids that are unfit for the world of work. The Unions have no interest in the quality of their work only pay and conditions.

JohnOfEnfield

YOU ARE ALL WRONG!

The repeat is @ 13:10 on Saturdays.

Colin

I was a little shocked at the outright hostility of the audience, again. In addition, I thought Philip Hammond was treated abysmally on question time on Thursday. Maybe I'm being a little cynical, but it seems to me that audiences for QT and AQ are loaded with left wing bias, more than ever.

When you consider that poll, after poll continues to show overwhelming public support for the need to tackle the deficit and the cut the size of the state, the audience reaction on these important programs just doesn't strike me as representative.

I really do think the government has to go on the attack against labour, the unions and the left wing media. Sitting back, allowing enemies to distort the reality will end in tears. The is no nobility in thinking you hold the moral high ground, or in behaving with absolute manners in politics any more.

As for Lucas, could someone please find the link to the interview where she was comprehensively taken to pieces by Andrew Neil, on hard talk and exposed for the utterly ridiculous charlatan that most sensible people recognise her as?

strapworld

There is aneed for this coalition government to stop playing the 'nice' guys. They have to come out fighting and tell the people the truth.

If it means expenditure on advertisements in newspapers and television explaining just where we are in debt! and, on this free school issue, the actual figures of pupils who cannot read or write etc.People have got to be bombarded with the truth!

They should also go direct to the people in asking if they believed that teachers should not have the right to strike?

The left are winning the battle for minds with, I must add, the collusion of the BBC.

The audiences are certainly stage managed. Question Time is an absolute disgrace and has been for some time. From a partial chairman- who should be pensioned off- to an audience which never reflects the political make up of the area they are broadcasting from. I mean, how many votes did the green party receive in the North East? That audience was full of wind power alright!

Similarily last evening's Any Questions. That audience was ridiculously loaded against the government.

The BBC should be asked to provide proof that their audience selection method is fair!

I also read in the Mail, today, that one of the production team of Question Time told General Dannant that they chose Middlesbrough, Glasgow and Sheffield as they were Labour strongholds and would give the coalition a hard time! If this is so that is damning evidence to kick the BBC with.

I think a speech or two from a government minister saying they are open to selling off more of the BBC and are considering having a survey as to how the public believe the future of public service broadcasting should be funded, at this time would be very useful.

Guido had a survey- which was a one vote per participant, based on ones unique ISP.- That showed a 70% support for the BBC to be funded by subscription and advertising.

Cameron knows that there is much disquiet about the BBC but refuses to do anything. WHY?

After your experience last evening, Mr Nelson,one hopes you will use your magazine to go in hard against the left wing BBC.

As for the teachers unions, and, if I am right, there are more than seven. Offer the other six special terms for the free schools but just ignore the NUT.

But, it is time for this government to start being hard. Far too much Mr Nice Guy. If they want to win they have to play rough.

GDT

I'm sure the Government will prevail. The coalition seems very solid. Much to the dismay of the Left. We have another 4 yrs to push through our agenda.

GDT

Has anyone seen the latest NewsWatch with Ray Snoddy. The sense of outrage re:16% cuts in BBC budget is unbelievable. They actually believe the license fee should go up. They had some "wonk" on trying to castigate the Government for freezing the TV license.

Nicholas

The Coalition seem to have settled for a defensive strategy. Whilst ready to blame Labour (which attracted boos from the audience on QT) they are just not attacking the Left and seem scared of being labelled "ideological". Playing to the "reasonable man" won't prevail against a charlatan and deeply cynical left wing conspiracy which rabble rouses at every opportunity.

cmp

On a recent Hardtalk Stephen Sakur interviewed Anne Coulter. What an embarrassment the BBC are when they interview 'evil right-wingers'. Sakur spouted puerile innuendo for much of the programme and was treated with rightful disdain by Coulter. We pay for this? Made me ashamed to be British.

niconoclast

Sadly Blowhard Blower completely blew the urbane and polite Frasier away with her windy bargain basement rhetoric.The audience was stacked with the usual suspects ie Leftist rabble.

dg

Gove & Cameron are so close that they share the school run together. Both of their wives write for the paper of the church which runs the school. So... Gove is safe in his position until Cameron isn't.

Francis Lankester

I attended the NUT/ATL fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference. The biggest danger lies in their desire to sabotage the -citing 'teaching to the test' & the 'narrowness' (the 3 R's) of what is tested. This is the weak point as when previous action led to the Dearing Review. The unions' alternative is reheated TGAT which is meant to dish league table, school accountability and choice.

Fraser Nelson

Christine, glad to see you're a CoffeeHouse reader. If you're interested in continuing the debate, then why don't we do an exchange of emails and we'll publish it on the Spectator website? Three each, 150-300 words?

Dimoto

It is interesting that Tories of Fraser's generation, growing up in the Blair decade, regard Thatcher and Tebbit with a degree of embarrassment and detachment.

They don't seem to realise that a hard edge is absolutely necessary to make progress.

Before Thatcher, we had the era of Jack Jones (in the pay of the KGB) and Baron Hugh Scanlon, with privileged access to Downing St and treated like royalty - government economic policy was negotiated with these characters.

The concept of having a polite debate with people like Blower, is like having a debate with Scargill - it just does not compute.

The most likely outcome is the one that Blower wants: the thrusting middle class will drive through free schools in more prosperous areas, but the union subversives will intimidate poorer areas (the ones who desperately need reform), into sticking with the status quo.

Then Blower and co. will proclaim that it was all a Tory ramp to favour the privileged.

A large proportion of prominent media people have been nobbled and married off to Labour princesses (perhaps it helps their careers), I hope Fraser is not heading down the same path !

In2minds

Free schools -

1 - "Union officials have passes to enter the DoE – it is no nerve centre of reform".

Why?

2 - "All you need to defeat central government is to operate on a level that doesn't attract national attention".

Point 2, it's just the same as for what is happening in Tower Hamlets.

And the 'typical' BBC audience, the " chorus of boos" for Justine Greening for example. It' such a regular feature I wonder how you get to pack the audience at these programs.

Edward McLaughlin

Colin

"Maybe I'm being a little cynical, but it seems to me that audiences for QT and AQ are loaded with left wing bias, more than ever."

Don't be surprised at this. All you need to do is go to the Guardian site, look at some of the discussion going on there; then pick a few of the sites they link to and do same.

Talk is much more attuned to the idea of attending these discussions than that on blogs outside the strongest currents of the leftist, pubescent swim; as can be sensed in the frequent statements urging comrades to muster and to pretend it is 1968 for ever and ever. But not on any account Amen.

Prodicus

Fraser at 10:57 - respect.

seb

Berni Dickinson

Truly, not truely.

You say that politicians don't know what is needed to make an inclusive education agenda work. The point, surely, is whether inclusivity has anything much to do with education at all. The UK has fallen to eighteenth position in the table of results for developed nations. And this ranking relies on the average, for God's sake, of the independent and the state sectors' results. All good state education sytems succeed because, obviously, they accept all children and, more importantly, because they teach rather than preach. A World Service listener was quoted on one of the late night broadcasts as saying that education was about turning children into generous and kind people. This is a wonderful ambition, but one that needs to be fulfilled by parents. As a theory of education, it's swill. What the Question Time audience and the teaching unions' hit squads can't stand is the fact that the independent sector is much better than the state sector they believe in and which they think should be kids' only choice. If NUT members genuinely [in my experience few actually do, regarding children as generally ineducable] believed in education and actually taught children rather than babysitting them, the gap between state and independent schools would narrow. Free schools pose the same threat to the luddite state sector: that free schools will be the better schools and lead to that dangerous situation envisaged by Labour's chief nutter, John Prescott, which is that people would actually want to send their children to them!!!

I cannot describe the sense of disappointment and revulsion I experience every time I see an audience on Question Time boo anything that the Labour Party and its shills would not support. A colleague tells me that he has a relative working in a provincial BBC centre. This young man says that every single person he knows there is a Labour supporter and that it's difficult to find a job in the BBC if you reveal too early on in the process that you dislike the Labour Party. Isn't the Question Time audience, like the BBC that stages it, supremely unrepresentative of the views of the population? I know the BBC claims to be impartial, but for all of my adult life, it's seemed to me to be the propaganda department of Labour.

Bloody Bill Brock

@colin
Are you Colin of UK Polling Report fame ?

Peter From Maidstone

Fraser at 10:57 - what are you playing at. There is no debate to be had with socialism. It must be crushed like islamism. It is anti-democratic. You cannot debate with it.

What next? An interesting exchange of views with Robert Mugabe or the junta of Burma? After all it is just a matter of choosing between two equally valid viewpoints.

For goodness sake grow some. Are you in this for the sake of the country or the sake of the Spectator? Do not give these people exposure. Hitler and Stalin were charming when they wanted to be. This woman is responsible for the destruction of our children's education and you think her views should be given more air time!!

If Gove's plans are to succeed they need the wholehearted support of the Conservative majority in England. There are too many enemies in the media and 'public services' as it is. There is no time for half-hearted criticism of the enemies of the English people, and for sucking up to left-wing lovies.

Whose side are you on? It is not clear.

Freddo

I've heard some barrel-scraping scare stories in my time but Christine Blower's "free schools give you asbestos poisoning" is a classic and certainly puts the NUT into nutcase.

Tertium_Quid

All this is so galling and frustrating - if only we had the means to SEE and UNDERSTAND the views of others. The fact that they would be open to scrutiny would be discipline enough. Through the best of British ingenuity, such a methodology is now available, and could be used to both enfranchise and ensure neutrality for the BBC. True democracy incarnate! 30 minutes with Fraser Nelson is all that is needed - are you game for this too, Fraser?

Fraser Nelson

Peter From Maidstone, I could not disagree more with you. Blower has sincerely-held beliefs about schooling, albeit ones that I profoundly disagree with. But you don't learn much from echo chambers. If she takes me up on my offer, we may all learn something.

Clear Memories

Of course the audience booed, Fraser - who invited them?

That would be the ever-fair, balanced and even-handed Biased Bollox Corp. wouldn't it?

Bill Rees

The worst thing the Coalition has done is guarantee the BBC's licence fee income for the next six years.
The BBC in its current form is disastrous for this country, and it's hard to see the situation changing. The Coalition had an opportunity to do something about it, and it has failed miserably.

old fogey

I think it took Hilary Benn,on Any Questions, over a quarter of an hour to refer to ' the banks, that caused this problem', cue ecstatic audience applause and cheers. It is the tactic regularly adopted by these charlatans and creeps to get the mob on their side by blaming the banks and bankers. Ugh ! What a loathsome bunch they are. But both the Dimbleby chaired panel programmes are being used by the BBC to become a focus of left wing opposition to the coalition; whether they stack the audience with knuckle scrapers or these people are more energised in getting access to a broadcasting outlet is the question that I find it hard to answer.

Patrick Hadley

On the programme Fraser Nelson said that the union had asked headteachers for the names and addresses of the parents who were supporting free schools, but Christine Blower said that they only asked for details of the consultation and for information about the numbers of parents responding.

Who was telling the truth?

terence patrick hewett

Schools will never be reformed until the system is surgically removed from the control of scumbag politicians.

JohnPage

Having heard the repeat, I thought Fraser did well to get the NUT's role out there, though he may wish he'd spoken with more of a rapier thrust.

This week AQ was in Derby, next week it's in Leeds. QT moves from Middlesborough to Glasgow and then to Sheffield.

The Tories got more votes than any other party. Do the BBC plan to keep these programmes away from Tory areas?

Woody

Debate is a word Labour and their supporters don't understand or believe in. The idea that you can have a debate with these people is naive and incredibly stupid (however charming they appear to be!). It's their way or nothing. When they say they will do whatever it takes, then that is precisely what they mean.
I grew up in a working class Labour household and take it from me I know what I'm talking about.

DavidDP

I'm rather tickled by the idea of defending democracy by crushing dissent.

Nick Wilde

Why is so little said about the marked bias shown by the BBC in all political debates. Every time, the audience is overwhelmingly hostile to the government. This was the case in yesterday's Newsnight package where Francis Maude was interviewed (and where the Labour party activists were reading out their questions from cards presumably prepared by Labout HQ), it was the same in Question Time (where a majority of the panel and of the audience were clearly anti-government)and it was the same on Any Questions where any view defending Government policy was received with boos or silence and every utterance of the left was cheered to the rafters. I have no choice but to pay for the BBC - when will it be called to account for its institutional bias. The left still frames the terms of any debate - I object to their depicting anyone who supports government policy as a cruel oppressor of the working classes. Look at the polls, most people support the ideas of fairness put forward by the Government. Why is this not reflected in its audiences?

Liberty

Michael Gove should abolish all laws, controls and regulations applying to schools other than those applying to independent system.

Paddy

Gove is a 'star'.

I will miss his tete-a-tete's with Balls.

Phyllida

More needs to be known about the nature and extent of sponsors' and parents' influence on the curriculum for Free Schools and Academies. What assurance do we have that those influences are necessarily positive or benign?

More also needs to be known about the effects on neighbouring state schools. Surely no one can actively desire a system in which some schools succeed at the expense of others or one which is factional and divisive?

The Government seems to accept the market as it's own justification, with the assumption that Business influences in schools and marketisation of the Education system will inevitably drive up quality. Do we really want "Poundstretchers: The Academy" or "Free Schools brought to you courtesy of Mike's Carpets and his Mum?"

Paddy

Peter from Maidstone and Woody:

Agree entirely.

"You can't debate with these people".

I too grew up in a Labour household - and no matter how horrible it is to say: they are a different species.

They are not open-minded - they are suspicious of everyone and everything. They have not got a kind heart and they look for the catch and what's in it for me in everything.

They are basically very unhappy people and you can never do enough for them.

Good luck Fraser - you will need it. And be prepared to be disappointed.

Fergus Pickering

Well, to me, Fraser, Blower came over as a typical NUT windbag, dishonest and uncharming, earning her salary by pushing the usual NUT agenda that everything in the garden is lovely and we should leave it to them. She's a hack. You were OK. You're not a born broadcaster, but you mean what you say and you say what you mean and that's OK with the rest of us. I assume the audience was made up for the most part of student activists and therefore beneath contempt.

Peter From Maidstone

Fraser, your logic would mean that you would debate with Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot because they had some interesting ideas. Real life doesn't work like that. When you give the enemy any credence at all you have lost everything. All the enemy needs, and has done over the last years, is chip, chip, chip away at our English values, culture and heritage. To allow them to speak, in the Spectator of all places, is to be part of the destructive process yourself.

Peter From Maidstone

DavidDP, those who wish to destroy our democracy by means of our democracy MUST NOT be allowed to participate in our democracy. Immigrants should not be allowed to vote or join a political party for 10 years after being granted. All Islamic groups advocating sharia, which is incompatible with our democracy, should not be able to participate in the public space.

niconoclast

The Left don't operate from logic but emotion and hysteria.You can put the most reasoned argument and it wii go right over their heads.It is like playing chess with someone who doesn't know the rules and just moves the pieces around the board in a random arbitrary way.Their 'truth' is true to them and they will assert the most irrational illogical argument with appearance of total sincerity and conviction.They are passive aggressive and their illogic is an intimidatory tool.

Nicholas

"Do we really want "Poundstretchers: The Academy" or "Free Schools brought to you courtesy of Mike's Carpets and his Mum?""

Why not - we've already had decades of educational brainwashing and leftist ideology in classrooms courtesy of Communist Teachers'r'Us and the Class of '68. If the motivation is to educate free and questioning minds rather than create a nation of compliant, socialist slaves I can't see a problem with the "market" getting involved.

Let's face it, the real bug up these lefty teachers arses is the fear of loss of POWER.

Peter From Maidstone

I am seriously thinking of seeing if I can organise interest in a Free School in London if these first ones take off. I think that it is an excellent and necessary reform to allow communities within society to organise education. It is not a function that can be safely left to the apparatus of the state alone because the apparatus of the state exists for itself and not for the welfare of our society of our children.

Piers

Yes, Nicholas, but how do you know that's their motivation?

Rue de la Loi

Fraser, try asking Toby Young if he thinks the NUTcases should be treated like opponents at a schools debating society tournament - have you read his blogpost in the D. Tel about the intimidation these thugs practice? What you really should have picked up on was Blowhard's repeated contrast between free schools and schools under "democratic control". As you surely know, a schol under local authority control is no more under democratic control than the security services of the German Democratic Republic were under democratic control.
The next time Dimbelby cuts you off as he did from quoting a relevant document, just wait until the next round of questions and resume where you left off before you were so rudely interrupted.

Phyllida

What do you think of free schools now, Fraser? Would you send your child to a school set up by someone who thinks democracy shouldn't be extended to people like Christine Blower? Extremists come in all colours.. Let's not put our schools in their hands.

Piers

Peter, if you think that anyone who disagrees with you is your enemy and should not be allowed to speak, I'll not be sending my children to your school. You couldn't have illustrated more clearly why free schools are a bad idea.

Piers

...you've also scotched Nicholas' assumption that people behind free schools and academies are always motivated by a desire to educate free and questioning minds...

Old Slaughter

@Peter from Maidstone.

Proper debate with Hitler would have exposed clearly the idiot within. I think comparing our union foe with the moustachioed one is erroneous, silly and rude.

Sheumais

Would a "charming" person have tried to land the low blow of asbestos when discussing the US equivalent of free schools? I don't think so.

Paul Atkin

Interesting. Its an odd argument that free schools will give deprived children the advantages that wealthy people buy for their own when the evidence from Sweden is that they simply entrench and amplify social disadvantage, the evidence from the USA is that Charter schools are largely worse than their state equivalents (and those that succeed do so by a very high attrition rate amongst their pupils, with those that are not going to succeed being excluded or dropping out). Its also a fantasy that parents of deprived children in deprived areas are busting to set up such schools. Better off parents may well be seeking state subsidy to set themselves up with a nicely appointed educational lifeboat so they don't have to mix with said deprived children and their parents, but thats not the same thing. Interesting also that the response of so many people on this thread is that, when your ideologies come unstuck or are challenged by inconvenient facts, an undemocratic reflex kicks in (spiced up with a dose of paranoia that the BBC is a lefty conspiracy thats out to get you)that you can't argue with socialists so you might as well stick your fingers in your ears and go lalala.