Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Look back in anger

In 1997 the Prime Minister made education his priority. Ten years on, his promises lie in tatters: Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth sift through a decade of political failure in which things got worse for poorer children and spin replaced reform

issue 03 February 2007

Let us take the man at his word. ‘We should start saying what we do mean,’ Tony Blair told his party in 1994. New Labour should promise only what it was sure it could deliver. And at the heart of those promises was education, education, education. ‘I would like,’ he said six months before his election, ‘to be able to look back and recognise that in the late 1990s my Labour government began the process of establishing the creative, vibrant, successful education service our country desperately needs.’ Now, as his premiership draws to its close, and as the Blair government sinks deeper into the quagmire of Iraq and cash-for-honours, it is time to hold this audit of practical policy.

What is not in dispute is that the education budget has indeed been increased by 52 per cent. But to what end? The Spectator’s analysis of ten years’ worth of statistics shows that the value for money has been poor.

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