It is now less than a year to the next General Election and the main political parties are already manoeuvring to present the parties in the best possible lights come poling day.. Fair enough, you may say but presentation is all about spin these days. David Cameron wants to win the next election outright for the Tories — I suspect there will be much reduced Lib-Dem members to lend their support — and to do this he has thought it a good time to have a government re-shuffle. In general, the only people who think re-shuffles either important or a good thing are those in the Westminster village. Half the cabinet are unknown and obscure to most of the public so mixing them up a bit does not lead to much reaction out on the streets. This latest re-shuffle by Cameron has gone further than most people expected and I think Cameron will come to regret his actions. It is a re-shuffle based on surface appearances rather than substance. There are, I think, only 39 women MPs in the Tory Party, yet 25 of them are, strangely, now suited to ministerial office. Most of them are young, look pretty, are almost totally lacking in experience, but will look good on TV..
Some changes were sensible and inevitable. Ken Clark has said for some time that he was going to retire and will not stand at the next election. So he will have 10 months on the back benches. William Hague has had enough of politics and will also stand down at the election. He has been an experienced hand on the tiller but, I suspect he has found time spent in endless meetings that achieve nothing is a waste of his time, A problem that must be especially true with the European Union, where no meeting can ever decide anything more momentous than the date of the next meeting. Additionally, in government, there must be whole armies of middle-aged men who never will be missed but they did their jobs. Now they are to be replaced by telegenic bimbos who are even more obscure than the people they replace. Some of them will be good at their jobs but when the prime objective is to put in place somebody who will look good on TV, the trivialization of politics is complete. How can we have confidence in a government that is little more than a branding and marketing exercise.
But of all the changes in this sorry spin, the worst by far is the sacking of Michael Gove as Education Secretary. Within minutes, the teaching unions were gloating and branding this as a great victory for the unions — and it is. Here was a man determined to set off down the road to reform education, re-establish standards of learning and get our kids educated, able to perform as well as the children in the best schools in Europe and the Far East. Of course, he got up the backs of the teaching unions — organisations that are less than valueless when it comes to educational standards. It is pure Sir Humphrey. Keep the unions happy and the kids under-stressed, while we educate our children privately! Certainly it is OK in cabinet stuffed with Old Etonians. Sacking Michael Gove on the advice of Cameron's electoral spin doctor is bad, bad, bad. He was the most radical Education Secretary since WWII, and has tried his best to improve standards in schools, while being opposed totally by the unions, the beans and sandals Lefties, the parliamentary opposition and the Guardianistas of Britain. A motley crew that I would not trust to train the dog.
Next year I have to decide who to vote for in the General Election. Now there is no-one
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