The Tories managed a remarkable feat last week by announcing two U-turns in one written statement. They waited until the end of the week, when MPs had started to head home to their constituencies, before sneaking out a written statement on the new education bill, adding at the end that they did not “require wider education legislation in this session”.
Maybe they hoped that nobody would notice.
But this decision to abandon their education bill means they’ve managed two U-turns at once, leaving a trail of chaos behind them. They should be in the dock for dangerous driving.
The first U-turn was abandoning their “education for all” bill, lock, stock and barrel. Let’s leave aside that this had just been announced in the most recent Queen’s speech. A piffling, procedural detail in the mother of parliaments, obviously.
Let’s also leave aside also that this was just the latest in a series of government climb-downs, as they abandoned a whole range of proposals in the bill because of opposition from both the Labour party and their own backbenchers.
The U-turn simply confirms that this is a government in absolute chaos. With their bill now history, many local authorities have been left scratching their heads about the £600m gaping black hole left in school finances.
Second thoughts?
The second U-turn came when they abandoned plans to introduce new grammar schools this autumn.
It was only recently that government spin doctors were running around Whitehall telling the press that “Downing Street wouldn’t be stupid enough to introduce a new grammar school bill. It will be a clause tacked on to the ‘education for all’ bill or similar”.
With that bill now abandoned, many people, both inside and outside of the government, are wondering what the hell is going on. Cold feet? Second thoughts? Trouble on the backbenches?
This much is certain: no new legislation this autumn to lift the statutory ban on more selective education.
I’d like to think that the government have seen the light on grammar schools and weighed all the evidence against their plans, together with the opposition they are facing in parliament from a united Labour party and a number of rebels on their own backbenches, who know that this policy will do nothing to improve the life chances of young people across England.
But that would be a mistake. If not now with new grammars, then maybe in May in a new Queen’s speech. So grammars are delayed. But not forgotten, unfortunately.
Whatever the procedural turmoil of the Tories, this represents an embarrassing defeat for a prime minister who stood on the steps of Downing Street on day one in June and made the plans for a new wave of grammar schools the central pledge in her domestic agenda.
It’s beginning to look like she made it up on the spot. Plucked out of thin air, with no coherent vision, as she tries to distance herself from David Cameron, by junking all her predecessor’s plans and policies.
Micromanagement
Meanwhile, local authorities are being left to pick up the pieces amid mounting concern about how school improvement services are going to be funded.
The new education secretary, Justine Greening must have been one of the many people shocked by last week’s announcement. After all, barely a month ago, she told the education select committee that the white paper was moving forward. Then an about-turn this week.
The prime minister earned a reputation for micromanagement at the Home Office. Perhaps she has yet to learn that it is simply not a sustainable way to operate in her new role.
Constant changes to policy, hesitation and delays appear to be coupled with foisting a series of Downing Street initiatives on unenthusiastic Whitehall departments. It suggests that the prime minister feels that she can run the whole of Whitehall from her office. But if that approach kept her in the Home Office for six years, it will only lead to disaster in Downing Street, as she continues to dither, delay, and reverse positions on every issue facing our country.
In the meantime, any plans for new grammar schools will now have to be put to a vote in the House of Commons. I look forward to challenging Theresa May’s arguments, with the support of a substantial weight of expert opinion and evidence against her regressive plans.
And from the conversations I have already had with MPs on both sides of the house, I believe it is a vote we can win.
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