{"id":8602,"date":"2024-06-14T07:18:11","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T07:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=8602"},"modified":"2024-06-14T07:18:11","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T07:18:11","slug":"listening-to-bridget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2024\/06\/14\/listening-to-bridget\/","title":{"rendered":"Listening to Bridget"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Labour party manifesto hit the streets yesterday. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/naee.org.uk\/labour-what-the-manifesto-says\/\">NAEE has<\/a> the education-focused details and it's fair to say that it's not Earth-shattering. \u00a0I then heard <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2024\/04\/30\/who-is-brigid-phillipson\/\">Bridget Phillipson<\/a> on the BBC <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/live:bbc_radio_fourfm\">PM Programme<\/a> where Evan Davis asked her a number of probing questions about policy on social care and higher education \u2013 ie what they would be doing about them. \u00a0Davis said that what was written down tended to be soundbites about vague aspirations rather than a setting out of clear policy. \u00a0It was not enlightening, as Bridget showed her entrenched ability to talk in clich\u00e9s without saying very much. \u00a0Was that a lack of forward thinking, I wondered, or just an instruction to say as little as possible at all? \u00a0The latter, I guess, as I can't believe they are as clueless as Bridget sounded. \u00a0You can hear her stonewalling \/ waffling from 34 minutes into the programme, repeating \"fully costed and fully funded\" as often as possible.<\/p>\n<p>There was no mention of climate education (or for example, natural history) in the manifesto to the disappointment of activists. \u00a0This is on a par with a lot of the manifesto so we shouldn't expect that just because there is no mention of something doesn't mean that they won't do it. \u00a0Exciting or terrifying, depending on your point of view.<\/p>\n<p>Wikipedia has a helpful <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Secretary_of_State_for_Education\">list<\/a> of English Education ministers down the years. \u00a0There have been 42 (so far) in my lifetime. \u00a0This is an average of more than 1 every 2 years. \u00a0Most (&gt;60%) have been Conservative). \u00a0It is a not a job to linger in. \u00a0And there have been 10 of them in the last 14 years. \u00a0So where will Bridget stand in this pantheon? \u00a0Will she be remembered with respect as an innovating minister who transformed things for the better? \u00a0For example, will she be an Anthony Crossland, a Charles Clark or a David Blunkett? \u00a0Or sadly will she be an Estelle Morris, or a Fred Mulley? \u00a0I know what I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Labour party manifesto hit the streets yesterday. \u00a0NAEE has the education-focused details and it's fair to say that it's not Earth-shattering. \u00a0I then heard Bridget Phillipson on the BBC PM Programme where Evan Davis asked her a number of...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}