Monday 13 October 2003

Silly Tories

They just can't get it right, can they?

Oliver Letwin, shadow home secretary, has tried to make amends for his recent remarks:

he apologised yesterday to his local comprehensive school for saying he would rather beg than send his children there
He certainly should apologise but not for any "offence" given to his local school. He should apologise for suggesting that he was willing to earn money by begging rather than, say, flipping burgers.

Note how Tory "modernisers" reacted to Mr Letwin's observation about the school:

They also angered modernisers in the Conservative Party who are eager to reconnect with Britain’s poorer areas where support for them has dwindled to almost nothing.
That is patronising nonsense. Poor people in inner-city areas know perfectly well that most of their local schools are useless and they also know that the Tories did nothing about this when they were last in power. If the Tories want to get votes in poorer parts of the country they need to promise immediate privatisation of sink schools and the overthrow of the educational establishment that is responsible for them.