Des Smith denies allegations
Unsurprisingly, Des Smith has made a full denial of allegations of his involvement in the cash for honours affair which led to his arrest last week. I was pleased to see the government’s city foundations program become embroiled in the current storm of impropriety which began with major party doners receiving lordships.
Forget for a minute whether funding academies leads to an honour and consider the wider question of money for influence. It’d be naive to suggest that the individuals throwing money into schools didn’t expect to get a bit of a say in policy in return. By way of an example, Sir (yep, he got that after donating money conspiracy fans) Peter Vardy’s success in used car sales has allowed him to buy schools which teach his fundamentalist Christian views. The slight problem with all this is that it’s disgustingly undemocratic. However unachievable it might be in practice we live in a democracy where one person gets one vote. How much money an individual has should have absolutely no bearing on how much influence they have over education or any other aspect of government. Any law that takes us further from this ideal should be changed, the same applies to any government passing such laws. Rant over.
September 19th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
[...] The same study also showed that the new academies (which I’m not fond of) established as part of recent controversial education reforms are taking in more than their share of pupils who are eligible for free school meals (the indicator used for low income) which will probably be used as an argument in favour of increasing the number of academies. [...]