Tories,bureaucracy and extremist schools

I hold no truck for Hizb ut-Tahrir. I would certainly share Tony Blair's instincts that they should be banned. But they are not. Nor is there any evidence that the organisation is running two independent schools in Slough and Haringey which receive state funding under the government's under-fives programme that has relied largely - as apparently will the Tories' new schools programme - on the private and voluntary sectors for expansion. David Cameron and Michael Gove have been condemning the Government for funding these schools.

Yet Tory spokesmen win applause from headteachers pledging that the Tories' new schools will be funded with the minimum of bureaucracy, sweeping aside most current checks. I'm all in favour of cutting bureaucracy and slashing the size of DCSF circulars - I spent many an hour trying to do so when I worked in the old education department.

But some bureaucracy does have a purpose. For example, Ofsted currently looks at what a state school does to promote community cohesion as well as teaching, behaviour, leadership and attendance, a measure introduced precisely to ensure that state funding does not go to sectarian or cultish religious schools. The curriculum includes citizenship - following a review in which Lord Baker was prominent - to promote democracy and create a common sense of identity. No longer, apparently, if the Tories have their way. And I'm not aware of any Tory plan for a more rigorous inspection of independent schools; if there is one, perhaps they could share it with the sector.

How exactly can the Tories guarantee us that they will not fund a school run, say, by a group of Muslim parents where some people suspect a hidden promoter but cannot prove it, under their free-for-all? Either they will have proper (bureaucratic) checks or they will not.

The value of universal healthcare

Janice Turner's column in this morning's Times is one of the sharpest defences of the NHS and best indictments of the shortcomings of American healthcare that I have read:

I happened to read Senator Grassley’s statement that in Britain the 77-year-old Ted Kennedy would not have received treatment for his brain tumour, at the bedside of my 86-year-old father. Mr Grassley’s view that “when you get to be 77, your life is considered less valuable under these [NHS] systems” seemed rather surreal, as my old pa, who collapsed at home, was brain- scanned until it was discovered that he had suffered a minor stroke. As a consultant attended him, physios assessed him and he was found a place in a rehabilitation unit, where he will spend a month recovering, I thought how the life of this elderly man — no high-born statesman but a person of modest means — was treated as immensely precious. Throughout this difficult week, in which I was plunged abruptly into the dark labyrinth that is geriatric care, I gave thanks that the least of my worries — and more importantly my father’s — was money.

Of course, the NHS needs reform, and the Labour government has done - and is doing - much to introduce choice, shorter waiting lists, cleaner and more pleasant wards. Indeed, a danger of the crudity of the debate as it has been framed by the 'eccentric' Daniel Hannan is that the Conservatives retreat further into the dishonest bubble of complacency on health policy that has been effortlessly occupied by BMA spokesman Andrew Lansley since he became shadow health secretary.

An end to entitlements on waiting times, as the Tories propose, will bring back the extreme examples of waits that have so exercised the Republican right. There will be plenty of A&E horror stories again, and an end to the 18 week diagnosis to treatment guarantee.

Nevertheless, the great principle of the NHS, as Turner says, is its underlying principle of universality. Preserving that is what matters.

Blame Brown for everything

The Local Government Association, a body now controlled by the Conservatives, commissioned a report which proposed means testing free bus passes for the elderly. So how does the Daily Mail respond to this outrageous plan in a report commissioned by the Tories?

Scrap our free bus passes? That'll be your ticket to ballot box oblivion, Mr Brown

What's up with the Tories on the NHS?

Clearly all the fame has gone to Daniel Hannan's head. Being feted by the barmy Fox News for his mad attack on Gordon Brown in the European Parliament has seen him lose whatever political nous he might once have had. Labourlist has picked up a clip where the Fox hero denounces the NHS as a socialist conspiracy/consensus and hails an American system that fails to cover 40 million people. That's the view from the privatising wing of the Tory right providing one headache for David Cameron - and it is worth seeing how supposedly sane modernising candidates have been swooning over Hannan - but at the same time, his health spokesman Andrew Lansley continues to suck up to the BMA with deeply unedifying policy consequences. Isn't it about time the media asked the Tories where exactly they stand on patients rights, choice and waiting lists?

Isn't there a good reason why so few top Tories appear on Marr?

Iain is fulminating again about the dearth of shadow ministers on the BBC. But it isn't the BBC's fault that the Shadow Cabinet is so lacking in strong figures, is it? Apart from William Hague, Kenneth Clarke and Michael Gove, they are a bunch of lightweights with far fewer strong politicians than the cabinet.

The Marr programme is intended to feature interesting interviews, not PPBs, though I concede that we should see Andrew Lansley properly interrogated about why he thinks the best thing for the NHS would be to allow arrogant consultants to dump on patients from a great height or Theresa May questioned about the Tories' backtracking on welfare reform (though I suspect that's not what Iain has in mind).

But given the choice between having a minister who is doing something and a shadow minister who has nothing original to say, who can blame Marr for having Ian Rankin or Hugh Orde on instead. The truth is that the dearth of interesting shadow ministers says more about the Tories than the BBC.

When the Tories say process targets, patients say waiting lists

Could somebody explain why BMA spokesman and shadow health secretary for life Andrew Lansley was allowed to get away with such transparent obfuscation on his health 'policies' on the Today programme this morning? His made up figure of '100,000 lives saved' from Tory policies was given prominence on the news bulletins even though Lansley himself admitted that this was not a target, or even a promise, just a figure which might happen if the doctors are left alone.

Then, his pledge to scrap 'process targets' was left unquestioned. Let us be clear what he actually means.

• First, the Tories plan to allow waits of twelve hours and longer in accident and emergency wards just so they can scrap 'process targets' that require a 4 hour maximum.
• Second, the Tories plan to allow waits of six or twelve months for hip replacements and many other operations as they will scrap the 'process target' of 18 weeks consultation to surgery that the Labour government is close to meeting.
• And third, they would have no 'process target' on hospital cleanliness, despite 'clean hospitals' being one of their five main goals at the last election.

Instead, they will cross their fingers and hope that the doctors will do the decent thing. Just as happened when GPs were given a whacking great pay increase in the hope that they might provide a better service for patients out of hours. None of this was revealed on the Today programme, where Mr Lansley was allowed a freedom to say what he pleased - and talk in jargon - that is denied any minister.

Conservative 'interventionism' at work

David Aaronovitch characteristically gets to the heart of the matter in his dissection of David Cameron's attempt to replace liberal interventionism with conservative interventionism, otherwise known as isolationism. Of course, this is nothing new. John Major and his cronies happily sat idly by while they allowed what even Malcolm Rifkind admitted were the worst crimes in Europe since the Holocaust to proceed unabated in Bosnia, while enforcing the deadly arms embargo that denied Bosnians the chance to defend themselves. As Margaret Thatcher remarked, this was a ‘killing field the like of which I thought we would never see in Europe again - it is in Europe's sphere of influence. It should be in Europe's sphere of conscience.’ And through this, Cameron's Conservatives would once again sit on their hands.

Snookered?

This piece by Fraser Nelson in the Spectator shows what a parlous state the Tories and David Cameron are in now. What a shame. Given the truly extraordinary figures in this week´s YouGov poll (pdf), it is hard to see how they could recover. But the excellent spin of the last month won´t produce the goods forever, and Mr Brown´s spinners should be careful about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Cameron's revenge

David Willetts has not been forgiven for allowing the Conservative party's u-turn on grammar schools to destroy David Cameron's poll lead. Gordon Brown has given Cameron the ideal opportunity to keep Willetts away from schools policy without removing him from the shadow cabinet. He has now been given the job of shadowing John Denham as universities minister. Michael Gove will be a strong shadow to Ed Balls. But he would be unwise to change tack on schools policy again. Willetts may not be the greatest politician in the world, but his basic analysis was right for the Tories - it makes far more sense to promote city academies for all pupils in 2007 rather than more grammar schools for a few.