Committing Politics in Britain

Here in the United States our leaders are busy rushing a immigration amnesty bill to the president’s desk before the voters notice and get mobilized against it.  The last thing they want is an open discussion of the issues.

But in Britain Conservative Party leader David Cameron is having an open discussion of education policy with his Tory Party rank-and-file.  In an op-ed in the London Times he writes:

This is the week when the Conservative Party got serious about education reform. Our approach rests on two things. First, an instinctive Conservative belief in rigour, parental choice and competition as the best way of raising standards. Secondly, on the evidence of what works — both in Britain and around the world.

That’s a polite way of saying that his spokesman’s speech the previous week about “grammar schools” set off a firestorm of criticism.  Many Tories want a return to academic, selective grammar schools and away from the current system of “bog-standard” comprehensive secondary schools.

But you have to give Cameron a tip of the hat.  He didn’t hide from his critics.  He came right out and confronted them.

First thing he cite in his article is the success of school choice in Sweden, the Netherlands, and “some states in the US.” 

Oh?  You didn’t know that they have school choice in socialist Sweden and liberal Netherlands?  No doubt you get your information from the mainstream media.  But here at Road to the Middle Class we are right on top of it.

Like conservatives in the United States, Cameron wants to avoid “selection” and wants students choosing schools not schools choosing students.

Notice how he gives Tony Blair a half-hearted pat on the back:

David Willetts and I are applying Conservative principles and best-practice education reform from around the world to our schools in England. This is what Tony Blair came to realise was necessary and has been moving towards in the latter stages of his premiership. His education Act last year was a step in the right direction, which is why we backed it.

That issues from his strategic decision to avoid opposition for the sake of opposition.  He wants to support good ideas even if they come from the other party.

Of course, he goes on to say that Blair’s party has since given up on reform.  Only Conservatives can be trusted to have their hearts in the job.  And it doesn’t hurt to talk about discipline in schools.

There’s a word for Cameron’s open advocacy and willingness to debate his party’s critics in public.  Politics.

What a concept.