David Cameron's announced his big new plan at a press conference complete with 'real people' saying suspiciously focus-grouped bland things designed to attract people who've never vote Tory before: sell public services to co-operatives. Not, you understand, the co-operatives founded by lefty types in the 19th century to pass on economies of scale rather than enriching middlemen.
No, Dave hates government, with its pension-providing, healthcare-arranging, schoolteaching meddling. He wants to privatise all that, but he knows that the British rather like the NHS and getting pensions backed by the 5th largest economy in the world. So he's dreamed up this co-op idea: that we could form a group to 'provide' services (e.g. open a school or social services centre) contracted by the state, in much the same way that Nike only brands trainers rather than making them.
What are the advantages to the Tories? Mainly, getting rid of 'big government' and the trade unions who are active in public service. It's ideological rather than beneficial. One point: if a council fails to provide an adequate service, you can sack them by voting them out. You also have a degree of oversight - you can demand documents, for instance. None of this will happen under the RyanGovernment model: weird cults and big businesses will start schools and their decisions and practices will be 'commercially confidential'.
The Swedes elected a rightwing government which permitted private groups to operate state schools - and equality has started to slip backwards in this most egalitarian of states.
Stand up for government. When it goes wrong (e.g. Iraq), it goes horribly wrong. When it goes right (the NHS, the Open University, pensions, education) it shows how great humans can be when they decide to work together rather than grabbing their personal piece of heaven. But then again, grabbing what you can is the core of Conservative ideology.
4 comments:
Referring back to our brief conversation last week regarding academies, I fear that the days of interference from 'big business' are nearly upon us. One academy appointed a non-teaching head to it's detriment, and from what I hear of other academies they bleed their staff dry and churn out students on a qualification conveyor belt where 'Underachievers' are highlighted for targeted intervention in Year 7! This is all well and good if we assume that all children learn in a constant linear fashion but they don't. I'm sure this is not the case with all academies which, to the benefit of their students and the local community, offer state- of-the-art facilities... but I can't help but think that a sense of enrichment and enjoyment for students is often overlooked with the 5A*-C mentality which seems to prevail. Not everyone is destined for academia and I find it perverse that schools are propagating this notion. (apologies for the tangent)
Sam - I fear the days of interference from big business into schools is already upon us e.g. bringing in management consultants as headteachers when a school does badly.
Vole - I was totally with you up until the point where you cited the education system and the NHS as things that go right - as a user of both services (and having spoken to other users) I strongly disagree
Neither are perfect but they're both better than any other system, and the principle of free and equitable access to services is brilliant.
Agreed - the principles are excellent and unparalleled - the reason services fail is largely due to ever more intensive rationing (sorry,'efficiency savings') and a heavily prescriptive and ill informed approach from central government (local works!)
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