The latest Independent Inquiry into White Working-Class Educational Outcomes highlights a genuine problem. Too many children from working-class backgrounds are leaving school without the opportunities they deserve.
What is remarkable, however, is the breathtaking hypocrisy of Labour’s response.
Bridget Phillipson has rushed to embrace the inquiry’s findings, declaring that white working-class children have “a government that will fight for them”. The evidence suggests precisely the opposite.
The truth is that Labour inherited an education system that was performing better than at any point in modern history.
England’s schoolchildren achieved the highest reading standards in the Western world. International studies ranked England fourth globally for reading and the best-performing nation in Europe and North America. Those results were not accidental. They were the product of years of Conservative reform, higher standards, rigorous phonics teaching, improved discipline and a relentless focus on academic achievement.
Far from inheriting a broken system, Labour inherited one of Britain’s greatest public policy success stories. Yet as soon as she took office, Bridget Phillipson started to dismantle it.
Far from inheriting a broken system, Labour inherited one of Britain’s greatest public policy success stories. Yet as soon as she took office, Bridget Phillipson started to dismantle it.
Then of course was her vindictive attack on independent schools. Voters were repeatedly told that imposing VAT on school fees would raise money to recruit thousands of additional teachers. That promise has already collapsed.
Official figures show that England now has fewer teachers now than before Labour entered office.
Let that sink in. Labour taxed parents. Labour drove pupils out of private schools. Labour increased pressure on state schools. And Labour has not delivered the extra teachers it promised. There are in fact less.
The Government’s flagship education policy has achieved the exact opposite of what ministers claimed.
Meanwhile, private schools are closing, reducing educational choice for parents and forcing additional children into a state sector that is already struggling with recruitment and retention.
It is difficult to think of a more self-defeating policy. The independent inquiry itself exposes another uncomfortable truth for Labour.
The report repeatedly identifies a disconnect between what many working-class families want and what Britain’s political class thinks they should want.
Many young people are crying out for practical skills, technical education, apprenticeships and vocational routes into employment. Something the last government was delivering on.
Instead, Labour’s instinctive response is more bureaucracy, more state intervention and more centrally directed programmes.
The educational establishment has spent decades telling working-class children that success means university, debt and a degree. Many families simply do not agree.
The inquiry found that pupils often disengage because schools fail to connect education with real-world opportunities and careers. That should have been obvious from the go.
Yet rather than addressing these issues, Labour appears obsessed with culture wars against private schools and ideological battles that have little relevance to children sitting in classrooms.
Perhaps the most damning verdict of all comes from teachers themselves.
Recent polling of the profession delivered a devastating assessment of Bridget Phillipson’s performance. Her net approval ratings among teachers are deeply negative and confidence in her leadership is extraordinarily low. In some surveys, not a single respondent rated her performance as “very good”, a remarkable achievement for an Education Secretary barely a year into office.
That should alarm every parent in Britain. When teachers do not believe the Education Secretary understands education, the consequences are eventually felt by pupils.
The tragedy is that Britain had finally begun to reverse decades of educational decline. Reading standards were rising. Discipline was improving. Academic achievement was increasing. International rankings were climbing.
Now, instead of building on that success, Labour appears determined to return to the failed orthodoxy that produced years of mediocrity.
White working-class children absolutely deserve better opportunities. They deserve better apprenticeships. They deserve better vocational pathways. They deserve schools that recognise talent in all its forms.
What they do not deserve is a government that inherited the strongest reading outcomes in the Western world and is now actively undermining the very policies that delivered them.
Bridget Phillipson talks endlessly about opportunity.
So far, her greatest achievement has been reducing educational choice, shrinking the teacher workforce and placing additional pressure on schools.
For a government that promised to put education first, Labour is making a remarkably effective job of putting Britain’s educational success at risk.
