Appointing David Laws as deputy to Michael Gove seems like a sensible way of bringing the Liberal Democrat back into government at first glance. But this move, which is one of the changes David Cameron is rumoured to be considering as part of the reshuffle, is actually rather a waste of a talented member of Nick Clegg’s party.
Here’s the case for putting Laws in the education department: He is not from the wing of the party that gets the most upset about Gove’s reforms in education. In fact, his views on free schools and the profit motive suggest he could work well with the education secretary. On profit-making, he said this in an interview with an education magazine in January:
‘I think that we would be unwise to rule out the possibility of it ever happening, but I don’t think it should happen over the next few years.
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