Cameron dropped Gove, now Labour must drop his policies

Fireworks, champagne corks popping and rare mashups of Hallelujah and Ode to Joy were heard echoing down the corridors from staffrooms across England and Wales in response to the news that Michael Gove had at long last been sacked as Secretary of State for Education. Forget the unpopularity of his policies, his mishandling of the scandal over suspected attempts to indoctrinate Birmingham’s children to Islamic extremism or his inability to work with anyone from teachers to the Home Secretary – his divisive rhetoric and refusal to recognise legitimate dissent alone made his position untenable. Anyone who raised the slightest objection to his plans was caricatured as an ‘enemy of promise’; teachers worried over performance-related pay, presumably even those otherwise supportive of his reforms, were told that they must simply be bad teachers and that their Outstanding colleagues had no such qualms. He had to go, and David Cameron should be commended for recognising that a man widely seen by his own party as an electoral asset had become a liability.

So much for Gove (I’m not sure writing four words has ever given me quite so much pleasure). His policies, though, remain an issue. Cameron has reaffirmed his support of free schools and they remain a part of education policy for all three major parties. Perhaps newly-appointed Education Secretary Nicky Morgan will soften the rhetoric and maybe even quietly drop controversial policies such as extending school hours and cutting holidays – a teacher can dream. Still, the broader thrust of education policy remains the same, and now is the time for Labour to take on the political status quo.

Recent YouGov polling shows that academies are unpopular (40% against, 32% for, 28% not sure) and free schools still more so (51% against, 25% for, 20% not sure). LabourList’’s own survey has Shadow Education minister Tristram Hunt as the second most unpopular member of the Shadow Cabinet: with -7.32%,hHe is one of only three Shadow ministers to get a negative rating,. There may be many reasons for his unpopularity (like all too many Labour MPs and prospective parliamentary candidates he was parachuted into his parliamentary seat over a good local candidate; he looks very much the New Labour ‘type’ at a time when the party is moving on from that era; andnot long ago he crossed a picket line (to give a lecture on Marx, no less). But it seems likely that he is disliked simply because he is the figurehead of an increasingly unpopular set of policies.

There’s time to fix this. Education is an area where the Coalition have shown themselves to be unpopular, unwilling to listen, even lavish spenders (as the £43 million splashed on a selective sixth-form shows). Labour can oppose all of this. We can insist on locally accountable schools with transparent admissions policies and can remove clueless ‘sponsors’ whose egos are more important to them than children. In fact, we can do all this and have the public cheer us on.