It occurs to me that a blog mostly focussed on political policy gets increasingly useless the closer we get to an election. I find it hard to write anything that doesn’t basically come down to Labour are brilliant, vote for them please.
So on that note, here’s the most important article of the day (apologies for link, but stupid wordpress iPhone app makes linking really hard)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/02/conservative-education-policy-swedish-failures
What has made me most angry in this election is the suffocation of political debate by the coverage of the horse race. This article is far more interesting than any number of poll reports, so naturally, it gets buried.
I feel like I’m pestering you and I can here the ‘f**k off Liam’ from here but I read this yesterday and actually thought ‘this is probably the sort of nonsense that folks like Hopi think passes as policy discussion’.
There’s nothing substantional here at all, no research links, no quantitative data, no independent sources to back up the claims and lots of vague phrases designed to push political buttons but with meanings that can be questioned and debated. It’s even written by another (albeit European) politician – at least make it a bloody think tank or summink!
In short it’s a perfect example of the sort of thing I parodied in a comment here a couple of days ago – opinion & partisan point-scoring dressed as ‘policy discussion’. That’s why it’s buried.
Liam 1 Hopi 0
But the data points are known. I don’t mention them because they’re uncontroversial
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/09/swedish-style-schools-wont-raise-standards
“In the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss), Sweden’s ranking for science fell further than any other country’s. The Swedes have carried out similar international comparative studies, as well as detailed national research, which confirmed a drop in standards.”
Now, you can suggest, as the new schools network do, that there are other reasons for this – such as lack of outside exams or inspection – but that argument suggests that allowing professionals to get on with job, the other main plank in tory manifesto, doesn’t work.
OK, now we have 1 study (and reference to others) that suggest the improving standards aren’t a consequence of the system so there’s a conversation to be had I’m sure. I could probably take 10mins on Google and find some competing studies and of course the terms of debate are open to question as well.
The point I’ve laboured for weeks holds Hopi – yes there’s a detailed policy discussion to be had but there are academics, think-tanks and studies galore lining up behind both parties plans. Only one party is deviously deploying this frame of ‘substance vs style’ to suggest somehow that when you look at the detail it’s a done deal for their ideas.
In America, we’ve moaned about horse-race coverage for years. I can’t really say when it started. Do you think it started (or grew totally out of hand), in England, this year, with the televised House debates? We’ve been doing that for a while; it could be that this is when election coverage abandoned issues and turned to race-track touting.