A New Twigg on the Tory Oak

The Upper (formerly Lower) Miliband's new education spokesbeing, Stephen Twigg, has further demonstrated the intellectual rigour and moral fibre of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition by deciding not to oppose the Government's abolition of the state education system. It might be thought that shadowing the ridiculous Michael Gove, with his policy of allowing any willing provider to teach whatever to whomever, would be an opposition front-bencher's attack-puppy dream; but that would be reckoning without Labour's self-imposed mission of outflanking the Conservatives on the right, an ambition the party has pursued on all fronts since the days of the Reverend Blair with all the myopic obduracy of a Beckett character in a Hollywood screenplay. Accordingly, Twigg has only three questions about Gove's shambolic "free school" thingy: "will the school raise standards for pupils and parents, will it contribute to a narrowing of the achievement gap between rich and poor, and what is the wider impact of that school?" The answers, as Gove has undoubtedly pointed out in his best Murdoch leader-writer fashion, are yes, yes and tally-bally-ho; hence, no doubt, it will not be very long before the list of Gove's own qualifications is impressively extended with the Twigg seal of approval.

Me at Poetry-24
Farewell Then, Doctor Fox