Educational traditionalists are wrong to believe that if we focus on academic rigour and high standards alone, everything else will fall into place.
Plus: May in trouble and Rudd in danger over Windrush. Corbyn stumbles. The pound rises. Local elections loom. And: the dignity of Neville Lawrence.
The capital isn’t a single political entity. Rather, it is still in some ways a Napoleon-of-Notting-Hill-style mass of small towns.
The evidence of improved standards shows that a knowledge-rich curriculum is the best way to enable each person to achieve the best of which he or she is capable.
The reality is that most of it will be concentrated on pupils older than 16 – whatever the best age may be at which to select.
The recently departed Prime Minister is re-emerging – and working on his memoirs. He will want to project his greatest achievement: public service reform.
I hope that in the electoral battle that lies ahead ahead, a fresh-faced volunteer will stand on the streets of Quito, and pose questions in a refined Liverpool accent.
Lord Woolton (pictured right) was the greatest-ever, rebuilding the Conservatives after the war. But here are my favourite five.
He was quick to detect rubbish and obfuscation – both of which he rightly identified as the stock in trade of his civil servants.
The statistics actually suggest that, nationally, students of a similar ability do better in these schools than in comprehensives.
Kenneth Baker is backing vocational education practically and enthusiastically. But too many other members of the Conservative family just aren’t interested in it.
The row over the Prime Minister’s remarks about local Associations has been mostly concocted. But the need for Party reform is real. We open a ConHome series.
It is expected to plan for the long-term as well as the short. It isn’t doing this – so change is needed.
I’ve long hoped that the next Tory manifesto would offer an agenda for ensuring Britain can compete in what Digby Jones has rightly called the ‘Asian century’.
Lord Baker of Dorking: "My Lords, has the Minister’s attention been drawn to a report revealing that, as a result… Read more »