I’m a great admirer of the current Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch the MP for Saffron Walden in Essex. I admire her because she is not afraid to take on the various race baiters that currently infect British politics. Ms Badenoch, who is of Nigerian heritage, has consistently knocked down those MP’s who support divisive projects such as Critical Race Theory and the BLM/Marxists.
Whilst I would prefer Ms Badenoch to stay where she is and keep fighting against terrible ideologies and equally terrible groups, there is little doubt in my mind that she should, when the time is right, occupy a much higher office than she does at present. One possibly that is being voiced is that Ms Badenoch should move to Education to replace the belegured Chris Williamson who has not exactly stunned the public with his management of the Education Department.
It’s important to note that the idea that Kemi Badenoch could move to Education is only a rumour at present and this rumour, as Guido Fawkes reports, is being denied by the current Schools Minister. However, denials about moves by ministers don’t always mean what they appear to mean. This rumour might indeed be bullshit but it also might mean that the Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants Ms Badenoch’s well known and obvious politically pugilistic abilities at the Education Department.
Moving Ms Badenoch to Education is not without risk. Education has been both the springboard for higher office, as it was with Margaret Thatcher, but has also been a ministerial graveyard as was the case with Labour’s Estelle Morris, who resigned because she didn’t feel that she was up to the job. The Education department is a very tricky beast. It is dominated by the left and far left educational establishment and instituting reform in it is very very difficult. It’s notable that not even Margaret Thatcher when either PM nor as Education Secretary was able to get reforms to the education system through. Her education ministers faced a lot of obstruction from the educational establishment to keep things as they were rather than improve things for the benefit of both those who attend schools and the nation as a whole.
Kemi Badenoch has qualities that many potential Education Secretaries or previous holders of this office do not have. The biggest one for me, apart from her undoubted ability to be a confident speaker in the House, is her ability to effectively attack Leftist vested interests, something she’s demonstrated well whilst carrying the Equalities brief. She’s silenced many of those who have falsely claimed that Britain is a racist hell hole and done it in not inconsiderable style.
If Ms Badenoch does move to Education then it will be very interesting to see how she fares. Will she flounder and be outmanouvered by the leftist educational establishment and by doing so be less of a future leadership challenge to Boris Johnson, which some cynics are saying is Johnson’s motive for moving her to Education? Or will she confound expectations and make Britain’s education system fit for purpose, academically vigorous and give parents much more choice than they have at present? If anyone, based on their current ministerial performance, could reform Britain’s creaking and failing education system and make it into something better, then I’d like to think that Kemi Badenoch could do it.
By all means if the powers that be agree she is up to it they should give her a go and although I feel she is analytical and hard working she may well lack enthusiasm and ideas. If she is in a research position she would excel. Maybe if she had the right team she would be ok.
Just my thoughts.
As you say, the team is key. Sending Ms Badenoch into Education with no trusted team around her just gives another opportunity for the leftists in DoE to run rings around her as they did with Thatcher’s ministers. Cynics are saying that Ms Badenoch because of her obvious abilities is a potential PM and she might be moved to Education in order to damage her career as the DoE is such a nightmare to manage because of factors such as ideologically driven civil servants and very militant far left teaching unions.
Why can’t education ministers just sack civil servants who obstruct any necessary reforms? As for teaching unions I propose that they should made to understand that causing mischief would make securing any future pay rises virtually impossible. We need a government with more backbone.
The problem is that nowadays the majority of state education teachers are very left wing. The centre or right wing teachers are all in private education.
The past governments really should have prevented this from happening as change at the moment would cause uproar with strikes being at the top of the agenda which means most children will suffer.
There needs to be a canny solution to the problem.
Completely agree that Government’s have failed to get a handle on political bias in the state education system. Ideally there should be no bias but we now have a situation where the left control almost the entire education system.
The problem as I see it is that Civil Servants are treated as being non political. There is the expectation that civil servants will be objective and this is accepted even when it is obvious that they are not impartial. The alternative would be for Britain to invoke constitutional changes that allowed ministers to replace senior civil servants with political appointees as is the case in some other countries. Having an impartial permanent civil service works well when the civil servants are genuinely impartial and can give ministers honest advice, but that’s not the situation we have at the moment.
Yes the Teaching Unions are a big part of the problem. It needs to be recognised that there are some absolutely brilliant teachers, such as the ones who teach my son, but the unions are not brilliant, in fact I believe that they have too much power.