Apologies for my recent, extended absence, CoffeeHousers — Vietnam and my immune system just didn’t get on. But I’m back now, and firmly embedded in Manchester, where Michael Gove has just given his address to the Tory conference. Although, I must say, “address” doesn’t really cover it. This was more a political variety show, short on new policy (because Gove’s existing policy is going quite well enough, thank you very much), and big on spectacle and optimism.
It started off with a video conversation between Gove and David Cameron, who was in a local school that is on the verge of becoming an academy. There was nothing surprising in what they said, although it was a revealing exchange nonetheless. It seems to me that there’s a concerted effort during this conference to crystallise what Cameron stands for, and to reassociate him with some of the policy areas that had been outsourced to ministers such as Gove and IDS. This video conversation was an example of that process, and had more than a whiff of Craig Oliver’s televisual nous about it.
There then followed another video (see above), before a selection of speakers settled into their speeches. Of these, the undoubted star was a sixth former from Burlington Danes Academy in London, called Quddus Akinwale. He told us of his own experience, of growing up on a poor estate and of falling behind at school and elsewhere. And he told us of how his life has changed since his school was converted into an academy by ARK schools, to the point where he is now hoping to study engineering at a top university. It was a shining reminder of what’s happening beyond the statistics and the rhetoric in this schools revolution. And the audience leapt into an ovation as soon as Quddus stopped speaking.
After that, Gove’s own speech didn’t really matter. His point had been made; better even than he could make it himself. Yet I was still struck by his earlier insistence that the Tories are now the “party of the poorest” and the “party of state schooling,” as well as by his emphasis on the educational deficit between Britain and nations such as India and China. He’s right that we face a stark, global struggle. But despite that warning, Gove and his fellow speakers still managed to deliver the sunniest moment of this conference so far.
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