It should come as no surprise to learn that the government has decided to find ways to embarrass the Tories by portraying the Party as being divided. First, the government hoped that the lengthy debates on the EU Treaty would pit Ken Clarke against Bill Cash when in reality this has backfired: instead, MPs' scrutiny of the Treaty reveals the vast number of powers being handed over to Brussels without a referendum.After Plan A failed, the government now moves on to Plan B: grammar schools. This issue caused David Cameron a lot of self-inflicted damage last summer and, of course, provoked the resignation of the excellent Graham Brady from the front bench. Today we learn that a government report argues that all grammar schools should be scrapped to make education fairer for poor pupils. The Department for Children report concludes that faith schools and academic selection were contributing to a divide between rich and poor.
If there is a distinction between what Conservatives and the Labour Party believe it must surely be on the question of equality: we stand for equality of opportunity while the left believes in equality of outcome. We believe in diversity, they believe in sterile conformity and dumbing-down.
Yet again the politics of envy are being deployed by an increasingly desperate government hell-bent on out-manoevring the Tories rather than governing in the interests of the nation as a whole.
The tragedy is that David Cameron's wrongheaded attack on grammar schools last summer will make it much more difficult for him to defend grammar schools against this renewed onslaught by the class warriors who populate the government benches and the Department for Children.
Is there a way for Cameron to position the Tories to be on the side of parents who want the best for their kids and who aspire for a better life for their families while still clinging to the nonsensical policy announced last summer? Or will Cameron now be able to pull together the muddled education policy rushed out last summer in an effort to pick a gratuitous fight with the Tory Right with the Tories' need to be on the side of parental choice and educational excellence?
