As You Were

Cuts to disability benefits were absolutely necessary and right both for financial and social reasons, said the Government; and then they weren't.

Imposition of the new contract for junior doctors had to proceed and the process had gone too far to be delayed, said the Government; and then it hadn't. 

Compulsory academisation of all schools was the vital step in freeing the education system from the dead hand of bureaucracy and equipping it for the future, said the Government; and now it's not. 

You will recall how exercised we were about this matter at Swanvale Halt Infants. Since then the scandal of Perry Beeches Academy Trust in Birmingham has neatly revealed the potential of academisation to pour public money in huge quantities into the pockets of those who run the academies. It will be an enormous relief that we don't have to waste time and energy on working out the details of Multi-Academy Trusts and get on with educating small children instead; but one major practical argument in support of total academisation, that the remains of the local authority-controlled system is now so riddled with holes that it can't practically survive, won't be going away. We will continue to struggle, as local authorities themselves struggle, with the pressures placed on them by government and the ludicrous rhetoric of austerity, and it will be no easier than it's been up till now.