Right wing policy is stuck in a time warp

Today's media is filled with articles drawn from a book drawn together by Tory peer and former Scotland Office Minister Malcolm Offord (or Baron Offord of Garvel to give him his full title). They all propose to 'fix' public services by using old fashioned ideology. (The book is not available yet – this is based on what is in the media reporting and placed op-eds.)

The proposals for schools is autonomous school leadership placed into a system of what is effectively competitive testing. Schools would be run by a Board (presumably parents and teachers, though this isn't clear) and it will be measured according to how well the pupils in that school perform in the increasingly regular testing that will be imposed on them.

In the case of hospitals, they are to be revolutionised via a mechanism in which government would “convene an independent commission of senior experts and business leaders” who would redesign the system “free from political affiliation”. It will, unsurprisingly, involve the paying of fees for healthcare.

There is a high nostalgia factor in these proposals. In both cases we are right back in a world where public services should be run by apolitical business figures or autonomous 'leaders' who are stripped of direct elected accountability and who are then held accountable (if at all) based on a system of performance indicators which are imposed on others.

Which is to say we're right back at standard 1990s right wing ideology. It is worth explaining what that didn't work the first time and won't work this time.

Take the schools example. There are two fundamental errors in the logic presented. First of all, once again there is an idea that 'if only there was more data' then 'teachers could teach children out of poverty'. More testing will show where things are going wrong and that will mean teachers can simply intervene and make them go better.

But by far the biggest determinants of educational performance are outside the classroom – poverty, poor quality housing, disrupted family life, disruption and violence in classrooms, mental health difficulties. These are the realities of modern education and you can't identify them with spelling tests and you can't address them based on the results of spelling tests.

The other is that the thing that is holding teachers back is a lack of autonomy. There is no doubt that public services have become over centralised, but this proposal basically makes schools wholly subservient to local authorities who must hold them accountable if they don't make student testing outcomes rise. That is not autonomy but greater control.

No mention is made of resources or any of the big issues that are actually facing education. It does not engage with the mountains of evidence on (for example) the merits of starting formal schooling later, more effective provision of welfare and mental health services or the well-documenter weaknesses in testing systems or the copious evidence from more successful education sectors which do not use it.

The NHS proposals are equally retro – co-payment for services, bring in the businessmen, have a summit, get rid of politicians and democracy. It is not that some of the problems identified in this proposal are not correct – the NHS genuinely is pulled around by the short-term interests of politicians rather than the long-term interests of the public health agenda.

But it is quite remarkable in 2025 to see the bland suggestion that business leaders (for some reason) are the solution to this problem. And as always no-one explains why very expensive and inefficient patient charging systems are a better way to fund the NHS than higher taxes.

This point comes back dogmatically over and over – we can't place any more tax burden on people but we can enter them in a lottery where, irrespective of ability to pay, they can end up with ruinous debts for essential healthcare. It makes no sense.

The schools solutions, produced by a retired teacher who is a Tory councillor, demonstrates an out-of-touch understanding of modern educational thinking globally. The NHS proposals are not much more than a scream of frustration from a group of right-wing medics and officials.

The right is stuck in a 1990s time warp. It is interesting that the schools paper identifies the problem as beginning after 2006. It appears the author think that demonstrates that it was an SNP government that is responsible. He seems unable to see that this coincides with a 'business-leader-created' financial crisis and an austerity Tory administration which was run on precisely the ideological basis they now propose.

In a lively democracy it is good to have ideas coming from different ends of the policy spectrum and that we debate them and draw the best solutions from that debate. But those coming from the right of the political spectrum really need to develop their thinking beyond disciplining children and idolising business leaders.