Keir Starmer clearly does not abide by the principle ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. On the contrary, with this week’s announcement of Labour’s plans to overhaul England’s education sector, Starmer has proven that even in the rare instance of something working well, Labour can be relied upon to make it worse.
Come the next election, Conservative activists looking to tally up the party’s successes will almost certainly land on education. Sure, they will have to close their eyes to the devastating impact of lockdown school closures and continued disruption by striking teachers. And they might have to cross their fingers and hope no one quizzes them on the mess that is Relationships and Sex Education. But if they manage to pull this off, then education really has improved since 2010.
The vast majority of Starmer’s proposed reforms to schools actually have nothing whatsoever to do with education
Take reading. England now ranks fourth in a major international study measuring children’s reading proficiency.
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