Is there anything these bastards won’t do for profit?

Sometimes you think a line just can’t be crossed. And then one day the Tories steam past it with such joyous abandon that it forces you to reassess just how far some of them will go to satisfy their perversions.

Today is one of those days.

Michael Gove’s plans for “profit making” schools have been discussed in the press before, but never so comprehensively or so chillingly as they are in the Indy this morning. The paper says that:

Academies and free schools should become profit-making businesses using hedge funds and venture capitalists to raise money, according to private plans being drawn up by the Education Secretary, Michael Gove.

Now I’m not against companies or profit – far from it – but allowing a profit motive in a monopoly system – such as energy, water or the railways – has been a public policy disaster. And now Michael Gove appears to want to apply the same principles to the education of our children.

Now I don’t want to try and explain the basics of economics to Michael Gove (because he’s a vindictive man, not a stupid one) but businesses who work in outsourcing generally make money by cutting down on costs. So where is the fat that should be trimmed from the education system? Maybe Michael Gove expects teachers in for-profit schools to be paid less than their counterparts in other schools, driving down the quality of teaching in those schools? Or maybe he wants to cut more expensive classes, like science, or music? Or maybe he wants to cut down on building and repair work, so that we can have the grotesque farce of buckets back on the floors of our schools, catching rainwater because a venture capitalist wants to make a buck off the back of your children.

Imagine the dystopian future that Michael Gove has planned for our schools. Sure – Johnny can’t write because he doesn’t have a pencil, he’s cold because the school have turned off the heating and his teacher doesn’t notice because she’s got a class of 40 and she’s being paid buttons for what is an incredibly tough job. But at least someone in the City can but a new Lamborghini to drive out to their beach house with the profits made from little Johnny’s school.

Shame on you Michael Gove.

But if you think this is the extent of the Tory privatisation agenda, think again. Tory councils like the one in Barnet where I live are in the process of hiving off everything that isn’t nailed down, handing it over to the private sector, slashing jobs and removing democratic accountability from a huge chunk (70%) of what would normally be under a council’s remit. Worse – the length of the contract with those privateers at Capita is 10 years, making it difficult (although not impossible) for a future Labour council to bring those services back in house in future.

Yet even after watching this orgiastic Tory fire sale on my doorstep, I never though that we’d see a government try and make money off the backs of children and young people. I thought education was sacred. I thought that, regardless of ideological difference, we could agree that the priority for our school system was the lives and futures of our young people, not a grubby buck or two.

But I was wrong, which only begs the question – is there anything these bastards won’t do for profit?