The big Burnham announcement today is just reheating Starmer’s 2025 technical education proposals. Downing Street will no doubt think this is fine because Andy is just that good at political comms…
The government is announcing that “14-year-olds will be able to get early access to technical education, skills training, work experience and connections with employers… The Prime Minister is determined to put technical education on an equal footing with the traditional academic path and to ensure there are ‘no dead ends’ for young people coming out of the education system.” Where has Guido heard that before?
Burnham’s only change is to specify 14-year-olds, which Team Starmer was already working on. Starmer’s 2025 Conference speech:
“So, conference, today I can announce: we will scrap that [Blair university] target and replace it with a new ambition, that two-thirds of our children should go either to university or take a gold standard apprenticeship.
I can also announce that further education, so long a Cinderella service, ignored because politicians’ kids don’t go there, we will make it a defining cause for this Labour Government. With higher standards in every college, the quality of teaching raised, more apprenticeships, more technical colleges, technical excellence colleges, qualifications linked to jobs, rooted in their communities. And, as Rachel announced yesterday, a new guarantee: training, work support or an apprenticeship for every young person struggling to find work. That’s young people backed. The class ceiling smashed. The grafters finally included in our country’s highest aspirations.”
The clues are at the bottom of the new Burnham release: “Most secondary schools already offer some form of technical qualification, but the Prime Minister’s new plan will boost the quality, availability and status of the offer…the Department for Education will use its existing budgets…This work will build on the existing £570 million investment.” Starmerism’s a powerful thing…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”