There are very few genuinely surprising moments in politics, moments that leave you literally speechless. Last week’s reshuffle delivered two.
The first was Peter Mandelson’s extraordinary return to Government. But the second – Lord Adonis’s curious move from his job as Schools Minister to the Department for Transport – was arguably more significant in policy terms. When I heard on Sunday evening I simply couldn’t believe it. As both Paul Waugh and David Hughes have pointed out, it is part of Westminster folklore that Gordon Brown decided to keep Andrew on as the minister in charge of the Blairite academies programme after a conversation on a train with Nick Robinson. The Prime Minister realised the significance of keeping him in post when many were predicting he would leave when Tony Blair departed Downing Street.
If the significance of Andrew staying then was considerable, then his departure now is no less so. Of course it is just possible that having spent an entire career dedicated to raising standards in schools for some of the country’s poorest children and recently pioneering the most significant policy to achieve this in years, he decided that now is the time to sort out the rail network with Geoff Hoon. But for those who have seen up close the subtle but significant ways in which Ed Balls has watered down Andrew’s beloved academies programme (if we win the next election we will extend it, by the way), this version of events is a little far-fetched. Perhaps this New Statesman interview from 2006 – a year before Ed became Children’s Secretary – is the best clue to unlocking the mystery. In it, against the background of Tony Blair's Education Bill (which we voted for) to put schools in the hands of parents rather than bureaucrats, Ed called for ‘a clear dividing line between us and the Conservatives on education policy.’ Andrew’s non-ideological approach to raising standards across the board is not compatible with this view, which is the rather more likely explanation for why he is no longer in the Department.
Either way, it’s a short-term tragedy for educational opportunity. We can only hope that Andrew will have some kind of role in the future to continue his excellent work.
In the meantime, Dominic Lawson’s article in this morning’s Independent is well worth a read.
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