Ed Vaizey, former lobbyist to the nation’s favourite insurance company, Equitable Life, seems to have been given licence to attack the supporters of grammar schools. Either that or he’s trying to score brownie points so he can get his mitts on Andrew Mitchell’s International Development portfolio that he has salivated over for so long. It is reminiscent of the sniping and division that went on at the tail end of Major’s government over whether we should really be in europe .. both arguments the real world has moved on from

Comes as the Indy’s Communicate Research poll shows 40% believe the Tories are divided & putting Labour up 4% (Tories down 3%)

Graham Brady: “A great many of my colleagues share my view. I have very strong support in the Conservative party, in the HoC & the country”.

Nigel Evans said: “Graham would not have been doing his job if he had not stepped in and defended the grammar schools.”

ED VAIZEY - Brady & grammars

C5 Wright stuff
Wednesday, 30 May 2007

Speakers: Matthew Wright
Ed Vaizey

MW: What is your view on grammar schools? Do we want more, the same or fewer?

EV: I think David Cameron’s absolutely right, I think that you know we had 18 years of a Tory government, didn’t bring back grammar schools. The idea that we’re going to bring back grammar schools is nonsense. It would be nice if Graham Brady supported David Cameron but there you go, I’m not going to go off on one. Never mind, you know? David Cameron working hard to get Tories re-elected, great support from one of our colleagues!

Channel 4 News survey of Tory Council Leaders on grammar schools - extracts

C4 News
Friday, 25 May 2007

Speakers: Cathy Newman
Cllr John Simmond (Kent County Council)
Cllr Ferris Cooper (East Hamps Council)
David Willetts
Cllr Alex Fox (East Staffs Council)

CN: In a private letter to the Shadow Education Secretary David Willetts, Kent’s Council leader accused senior Tories of being completely out of touch with family’s aspirations.

JS: I think if Mr Willetts comes down here. Comes and talks with us. Sees the family of schools that we’ve got and how we integrate and deliver the curriculum for all ranges of ability - and that after all is my responsibility to ensure that that happens - I think perhaps he will get a more balanced idea than perhaps the original views.

CN: Anger at David Cameron reverberates far beyond the Tory southern heartland. Of 52 Conservative council leaders interviewed in a C4 News survey, more than half - 28 - opposed their party’s new schools policy. Of those, 57% had grammar schools in their area that they’d fight to keep.

FC: I think we’re very worried about it because the … in this country we’re getting consensus politics gradually developing. The parties are merging, their policies becoming indistinguishable and the Conservative Party needs to be the party to lead the way down that meridian of politics, that middle line that people are gravitating towards and we’re worried by taking a strong line on grammar schools we’re going to lose our heartland voters.

CN: William Nunn, leader of Bretland Council said: ‘If you lead the party too rigorously against what everybody else believes, there’s a danger of losing the party. The core Conservative vote is already becoming disenfranchised from what David Cameron’s doing”. Roy Whitehead, leader of Chelmsford Borough Council added: ‘It makes me wonder why Cameron’s a Conservative’. John Leek, leader of Basingstoke and Dean Borough Council said he might quit the party if David Cameron took it too far away from traditional Conservatism. Another says that: ‘Willetts and Cameron between them have been a bit like Laurel and Hardy’.

DW: David Cameron’s mettle has been tested. He has faced opposition within the party, so he has been robust, clear-headed, tough throughout.

AF: I think David Cameron has actually hit the nail absolutely on the head. He’s made it clear that he’s not going to damage or close any of the existing 170 odd grammar schools that exist in the country.

editor[at]recessmonkey.com