Public services: how should Labour pitch it in 2010?

By James Valentine

New Year’s Day brought an interesting contribution to the education debate from the chief adviser for London schools who has apparently accused parents who attend “dinner parties in Islington” of writing off excellent comprehensives on their doorsteps, and challenged them to go and spend a day in a local school. In an interview with the Guardian, David Woods condemned parents who automatically send their children from a state primary to a grammar or private secondary school, rather than to a comprehensive.

The adviser’s statement is important because it counters the Tories’ repeated claim that Labour’s spending on public services had been “wasted”. It would be unwise, though, for Labour to preach to or criticise parents, as he appears to do. After all, we have been banging on about “choice” in public services so we can’t condemn those who opt out.

His challenge to spend a day at your comprehensive is more to the point – if you do your research properly you might find that your local school is more disciplined and has better results than you thought. Where good comprehensives exist, you often pay a huge premium for going private at secondary level for only a small increment in average ‘A’ level performance. So the question for parents should be, where’s the value for money? Could the same money be better spent on holidays, helping your children with their student loans, or whatever?

Similar considerations apply with the NHS. I recently met up with one of my children’s old school friends whose father had tragically died in a private hospital some years previously. This unfortunate individual had been admitted for a minor operation but unexpectedly suffered complications and died. The hospital in question is luxurious but, allegedly, the cleaning standards in this amply-carpeted establishment were poor and this may have lead to a hospital-borne infection. It is of little comfort to his widow and children that, finally, they have received a very large compensation award.

By contrast, if you can get into a good NHS hospital then there is nowhere that you can get better treatment – you don’t gain any more years on your life by paying for private insurance. Although the recent Mid-Staffordshire scandal reminds us that there is still some unacceptable practice in the NHS, it continues to be the best health insurance scheme in the world – vastly better value than the wasteful US system that’s praised by Conservative cheerleaders.

It’s Labour’s investment in public services which has made them as good or better than their private equivalents. This is just as significant for electors who consider themselves to be aspirational or middle class as for those who are less well-off. Our message should be that well organised, tax-funded public services work very well; they’re the mark of a civilised society in which everyone can benefit.