This article first appeared on Progress Online on 8 May 2013 and is based on the final chapters of ’5 Days in May: The Coalition and Beyond’ which can be bought at the special price of £10 by visiting www.politicos.co.uk/promotions and entering the code: PROGRESS. Few short periods in politics have mattered more in Britain than the ‘five days [...]
There is a compelling need for more – and better – youth apprenticeships. Long-term youth unemployment is rising as fast as university tuition fees, yet employers are complaining of a lack of skilled labour. This is not a paradox. It is because there is a black hole of no education and no work-related training into [...]
This open letter originally appeared in The Times on 5 February 2013 Dear Justin, You won’t be short of advice now that you have been confirmed as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury. My only qualifications for adding to it are that I hold no religious office and have no axe to grind beyond that of [...]
The Leveson report has generated many headlines, but the Richard report on apprenticeships, published around the same time as the inquiry into press regulation, may make a bigger imprint on the UK’s economy and society. Not a moment too soon. It is a modern paradox that mass youth unemployment coexists with employers complaining that they cannot [...]
Published in The Times, 1 Jan 2013 This year is the 50th anniversary of the infamous Beeching axe. Yet among hate figures, Dr Richard Beeching is one of the least deserving. Looking back, even with hindsight, he was mostly right to close down thousands of miles of railway track and hundreds of stations. The problem [...]
Roy Jenkins, who died 10 years ago on 5 January, remains a formidable inspiration. As a social reformer, and in his relentless campaign to build a “one nation” social democracy, he is a radical model for today’s left. Jenkins changed the face of Britain with the liberal reforms of his two stints as home secretary [...]
When politicians talk about social mobility, it can all sound rather dry and vague, full of waffle about “creating opportunities” and “ladders” up which the “disadvantaged” can climb. For me, the whole thing is quite personal. My father, a Greek Cypriot immigrant who came to Britain in 1959, was left alone to juggle the care [...]
Doug Richard’s review of apprenticeships is about to be published. For months I have been pressing the case for a Whitehall apprenticeship scheme and the Richard review offers the opportunity to take this forward. The government should now immediately launch a civil service apprenticeship scheme to run alongside Whitehall’s existing graduate fast scheme. Whitehall currently [...]
“There are no GCSEs in values, or league tables for citizenship”, Estelle Morris, former education secretary, once remarked. Yet values and citizenship ought to be integral to 21st century education, and the UK is too half-hearted about the role of schools in building citizens and citizenship. We complain that teenagers show too little responsibility, yet [...]
Teach First has just celebrated its tenth anniversary. Last week more than 3,000 young teachers, with education and government leaders, gathered in the Festival Hall to praise its success in transforming schools in England’s toughest neighbourhoods. Nearly 1,000 top graduates started in the classroom through Teach First this September, with seven applicants per place. It [...]
Two of the greatest challenges in English education today are, first, not just to reduce the number of underperforming comprehensives but to eradicate them, and second, to forge a new settlement between state and private education. I put these two challenges together because they go together. It is my view, after 20 years of engagement [...]
Michael Gove’s EBacc is basically a reinvention of GCSEs, but without modules. I have no problem with this, but it is not a fundamental change to England’s education system. Academies are the big change out there. Academies are independent state schools with far greater freedom and management strength than traditional comprehensives. Their results are racing [...]
From the Evening Standard, 7 August 2012 Mossbourne Academy in Hackney symbolises the transformation of London’s schools in the past decade. The academy is on the site of Hackney Downs School, dubbed the “worst school in England” when it was closed by inspectors in 1995. Virtually no students were getting decent GCSEs, behaviour was appalling, [...]
From the Financial Times, 24 July 2012 George Orwell could not have put it better. “Whilst the Department for Communities and Local Government has no apprentices at present, it wholly supports the government initiative to promote these.” So, one of the largest departments of state wholly supports the government of which it is a part [...]
Written for The Times, 26th June 2012 Yesterday’s announcement that Liverpool College is to become an academy is perhaps the single biggest breach in the Berlin Wall between the private and state sectors of education in recent decades. It opens the way for many more private schools to join the state-funded system – giving [...]
From the Guardian This morning the committee of MPs and peers who have been studying the government’s draft bill for reform of the House of Lords publishes its report. After an unprecedented 30 meetings, hours of evidence-taking and comprehensive deliberation, the speculation and misrepresentation will be over. On some points of detail, the committee was [...]
From the Evening Standard London would not be hosting the Olympics in 100 days had we not invested in its transport system. With the mayoral campaign dominated by the row over whether we have to choose between investment or cutting fares, Londoners should recall who is really responsible for the current improvements: Ken Livingstone. Boris [...]
My suggestion that a reformed House of Lords should be located in a major city in the midlands or the north has stimulated a big debate. Here are some of the contributions: Let’s move the Lords to Manchester From the Spectator’s “Coffee House” blog Andrew Adonis, one of the [...]
Originally published in the Birmingham Post There was a time when Birmingham was undisputedly the nation’s second city. Nowadays a host of other cities are nipping at its heels. Greater Manchester is now by far the most autonomous and powerful city outside London, it also boasts the biggest airport. Leeds is the biggest provincial hub [...]
Originally published in the New Statesman The party will get back into government by having a better plan for the future, not by opposing changes that are working well. Free schools are Labour’s invention. They were a crucial part of our drive to promote equality of opportunity and social mobility, particularly in disadvantaged communities with [...]
Originally published in The Times Can you name the leaders of Birmingham, Liverpool and Leeds city councils, three of the largest cities in England? No? You are in good company. When I asked the question at a conference of local authority chief executives, not even they could name all three. But have you met [...]
Originally published in The Times The urgently needed high-speed modernisation of our railways is being put at risk by slow-footed ministers The only thing high speed about the development of High Speed 2 in Britain is the treading of water. If Justine Greening, the Transport Secretary, gives the go-ahead to the new rail line from [...]
Originally published in The Times We are in as big a bind on civil partnerships as we are on women bishops and gay priests The House of Lords votes tomorrow on whether religious premises can be used for civil partnerships. A Tory peeress proposes to strike down the relevant legal provisions, arguing that religious [...]
For Progress New Labour’s ‘investment and reform’ of schools was turning the tide on social mobility A recent spate of studies provide big lessons for Labour’s future. In particular: don’t trash Labour’s record, but learn from past success and adopt the same radical New Labour mindset in addressing the challenges ahead, especially the challenge of [...]
For the New Statesman Few ministers – even prime ministers – make much difference. Even where they preside positively, few worthwhile reforms can be attributed to them personally. Michael Heseltine is a case apart. Council house sales. Docklands. The Thames Gateway. High Speed 1. The Jubilee Line and the Docklands Light Railway. The O2 Arena [...]
Times article on high-speed rail and Heathrow The Conservative conference is being targeted by anti-high-speed rail protesters from the Chilterns, battling it out with the leaders of the host city of Manchester who are passionately pro-HS2. It was the same at the Labour and Lib Dem conferences. For the golden rule of high-speed rail is [...]
For Progress We must not oppose high-speed rail for opposition’s sake. High Speed Two is Labour’s scheme in origin and conception. Our battle with the Tories should not be on the existing HS2 proposal, but on taking the line right through from London to Manchester and Leeds as a single project rather than stopping at Birmingham [...]
For the Huffington Post Universities across England will today find out how much they will be allowed to charge students to study for degree courses. There is no getting away from the fact that fees approaching £9,000 a year will be off-putting to teenagers from poorer families. And this against a background where even now [...]
For the Huffington Post Today an economic report has been published that reaffirms what we have known all along. High-speed rail will deliver jobs and growth. The report, commissioned by Britain’s leading cities, is supported by politicians and business leaders alike and states that 1,000,000 jobs rely on the support of the Governments investment in [...]
Click on the link to listen to my visit to a children’s home for BBC Radio 5 Live.
Originally published in The Guardian The plans for a reformed, elected second chamber will give it the authority to challenge governments As the government unveiled its white paper and draft bill on House of Lords reform three weeks ago, the old guard lined up variously to oppose it, to ridicule it and to defend the status quo. [...]
Originally published in The Times The social work profession has had a terrible time, overwhelmed by horrendous cases of child abuse and neglect which social workers failed to prevent. Care homes have fared even worse in the wake of abuse scandals. The failures are real enough. But so are the successes, and so is [...]
For Progress Labour’s policy review needs to reaffirm its commitment to high-speed rail, ensuring a green alternative to more roads and flights Labour’s plan for high-speed rail, which I unveiled last March, is a key part of our strategy for growth, regional development and sustainable mobility. It is vital Labour’s forthcoming policy review reaffirms our [...]
Originally published in The Times A starter for ten. Name the leaders of three of England’s largest cities — Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Struggling to name even one? You are in good company. I have yet to meet anyone who knows them all, and that includes the Mayor of London and an entire conference of [...]
The Lib-Con pact is riven with deep ideological faultlines The coalition agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats is not so much a programme for government as a catalogue of concessions achieved by the smaller party at the expense of the larger one. Many of them spelt out in precise detail. We learn the [...]
Originally published in The Guardian Lib Dem brokers misled and tried to run a dutch auction. This Thatcherite-liberal love-in can’t last Unprincipled governments are inevitably unstable, unsuccessful and short-lived. This will doubtless be true of the Cameron-Clegg coalition, the most unprincipled governing combination in Britain since the Fox-North coalition of 1783, which united a similarly implausible duo [...]
Transport Times Conference, 24 June 2009 – Originally on ways2work Transport Times has long been at the forefront of innovative thinking in transport policy, and I am delighted to be making my first major speech as Secretary of State, setting out my transport manifesto, at this conference. The subject of your conference – “door to [...]
Even America is investing in high-speed rail. It’s time Britain did the same, says the transport minister Originally in Prospect Magazine On the day America elected Barack Obama, the people of California took a less noticed, but still momentous, referendum decision. They voted in favour of the country’s first genuinely high-speed railway connecting San Francisco [...]
In a reinvention of national service, top graduates are once again returning to teaching Teach First—the scheme that recruits graduates from elite universities to teach in inner-city schools for two years—is turning into one of the most successful social movements in the country and helping to reinvent the idea of post-university public service. In July [...]
An article of mine for Comment is Free Now that the creation of a largely elected House of Lords seems likely, the location of this new parliamentary chamber ought to be a matter for debate. And the case for locating it in one of England’s regional cities should be considered. As a Londoner who delights [...]
Lord Salisbury was Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. William Gladstone was his own Chancellor. If Tony Blair enters Downing Street, he should appoint himself Education Secretary Tony Blair should take two posts in the next Labour government: prime minister and Secretary of State for Education. This may sound nonsensical. After all, education is only one [...]