Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The Liberal joins the infantile left

Liberal Democrats have come to know The Liberal as a magazine that appears at Autumn Conference each year with an  issue that calls for the party's leader to be deposed. The only other place I have seen it on sale is at Borders in Leicester, and that shop closed some time ago. When I saw The Liberal there it often had some impressive names among the contributors, but it could he hard to see what was Liberal about their views.

The magazine's antics at Conference are irritating, but the amount of publicity that what is essentially a trustafarian arts magazine gets for itself this way is in part the fault of the party's officials and membership. We ought to give the media more to write about.

But it seems that The Liberal does have a life outside Conference. Because Solution Focused Politics points us to an article in its February 2011 issue. There Simon Kovar writes:
The coalition government is engaged in nothing less than a war on children, on young people and on education itself.
It makes you wonder if they will be calling for revolution next month, rather than simply wanting to see Nick Clegg deposed.

For what it is worth, I share the view Sof olution Focused Politics that, come the next election, simply saying we are opposed to free schools will not do.

If we are against them, then we will have to find alternative ways of encouraging innovation and choice within the maintained system. Simply talking about "a two-tier system" will not cut it. And copying the teaching unions by giving the impression that we are against any change in schools certainly won't.

1 comment:

Tom May said...

'Choice' acts as both buzzword and panacea, with very little evidence of improved education. The £500m start-up money has been given by the state to these de-regulated schools. Surely addressing class sizes and quality within the state system would be better served by wise investment in the existing system?