Baby Cam’s question time

What could David Cameron wish for his new daughter? All fathers want their children to grow up in a better world. The Prime Minister is in the position to forge one. He has a good chance of his youngest daughter celebrating her next nine birthdays at Chequers, and there is much he can do in the meantime.

There are several questions we hope Baby Cam (her name was not chosen when we went to press) will be able to ask her father on her tenth birthday. The first is ‘what was a sink school, Daddy?’ The academies proposal by Michael Gove can — if properly rolled out — make them disappear. Why, a future generation might wonder, would a parent send their child to a school they knew was bad? We can hope that today’s infants grow up thinking it odd that government had such control over people’s lives. Or that a country tolerated a system which served the poor so much worse than it served the rich. Next, ‘what was a waiting list, Daddy?’ Rationing of healthcare under an NHS bureaucracy is an absurd notion. And perhaps ‘who were the Liberal Democrats, Daddy?’ It is far from clear that the party will survive the decade.

But, sadly, there is no chance of the ten-year-old Cameron asking, ‘What was national debt?’ On current projections, she’ll be a graduate before it returns to pre-Labour levels. As the Tory election poster had it, ‘Dad’s nose. Mum’s eyes. Gordon Brown’s debt.’