Conservative leader suggests making a deal amid scandals surrounding Farage’s party could derail the reputational clean-up of her own party
Tim Shipman has written about what will be coming up at the Labour conference next week in his cover story for the Spectator. He says:
Labour special advisers summoned last week to the pillared state room on the first floor of No. 10 to hear the plan for conference from Burnham’s political secretary, Hayden Munro, left in no doubt that the PM wants to be a transformational figure. The conference ‘narrative’ these advisers were urged to push includes the telling line: ‘This Labour government will bring forward the biggest change to Britain in 40 years, with a new political and economic model.’ On the specifics, Burnham will pledge: ‘We will make the choices that are needed to end rough sleeping, solve the social care crisis and get more young people into work.’
Burnham will pledge to run a ‘cost-of-living government’ with further ‘immediate action’ to ‘provide the breathing space people need’, as well as outline plans to devolve power ‘out of Whitehall’, ‘reindustrialise Britain’ and take back public control of ‘the essentials in life – such as energy, water and housing’ to ‘make them affordable again’.
Ultimately, the election choice is Burnham’s. ‘If you knew what Keir’s aides thought, you knew what he would do,’ says a ministerial aide. ‘But Andy has political opinions of his own.’ Burnham may go for it. But those closest to him doubt it. ‘He likes risk, but he has stuff he wants to get done,’ says one close confidant. While outsiders think his ambitions require an election, Burnham thinks he can transform Britain without one. ‘Andy really cares about the devolution stuff,’ the ministerial aide observes. ‘Most of Westminster roll their eyes but he thinks that will change the country. He thinks doing that will make him a great prime minister.’
And those who think none of that will deal with Britain’s economic problems seize on another clue. A Labour adviser concludes: ‘Ultimately I think Burnham and his team will do what they often do with difficult decisions, and not make one.’
What I imagine is that some schools will offer some of these subjects where their local labour market demands, and this is where our mayors and our local leaders are really helping to shape that in their area.
So I wouldn’t expect a school to offer all of these, as they don’t offer all GCSEs at the moment. They will specialise in particular areas.
If you’re trying to do engineering or construction, for example, you know that involves a lot of problem solving, a lot of maths, a lot of thinking, as well as the hands-on skills that’s required.
So it’s not dumbing down, it’s the opposite of that, actually, because this is about raising the standards and the rigour and regulating these qualifications.
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