Bridget Phillipson: "Spiteful class warrior" and proud

0:00Just a quick word before we start to say that we recorded this episode before the tragic news of Anne Whittacombe's murder broke. We will, of course, be returning to that story in the days to come. But first, here is that interview with Bridget Phillipson. This is a global production. Kemi Badenoch, she seems to be bringing you up a lot. Appointing a spiteful class warrior as education secretary was a disaster. I seem to be living rent-free in her head and I don't really know why. I honestly could not care less what Kevin Badenock thinks about me. This must be a very weird couple of weeks as a serving cabinet minister in the Stama government.

0:38Big mistakes were made. People said, look, we voted Labour and we didn't vote for this. There's a disconnect, I think, in terms of Kia's public persona and who he is as an individual. And I don't quite know why that is. We've got a big fight on our hands and a lot rests on defeating the likes of Farage and reform and his poisonous politics. Why should we indulge in some attention-seeking, desperate stunt that Nigel Farage wants? Why would we indulge that? Kemi Badenok, the Tory party leader, isn't exactly known for being a cuddly, friendly figure. But even for her, she seemed especially exercised of late by one woman on a Labour front bench.

1:11Hands up if you think the education secretary is doing a good job. Even she doesn't think she's doing a good job, Mr Speaker. Even she doesn't think she's doing a good job. Bridget Phillipson represents everything that is wrong with the Labour Party. She is incompetent, but yet she is very happy to dish it, but can't take it. She grew up on a council estate. She's a disgrace to people who grew up on a council estate. That is not an excuse for failure. Brilliant people grew up on council estates and have done a lot better than her. She's just not good at the job and I'm not going to pretend otherwise so that she doesn't feel bad about it.

1:46She should feel bad. Yes, Bridget Philipson, the Education Secretary and a close Keir Starmer ally, is a current obsession of the leader of the opposition. Interviews come and interviews go, and yet Kemi finds her way to bring Bridget Philipson into the conversation. And it's not just her. The right-wing press, the Daily Mail, in particular the Telegraph, seems to have come to rather loathe her, writing a story recently accusing her of hypocrisy because her mother bought her council house on Wearside and sold it for the princely sum of roughly£90 ,000, an amount, I think it's fair to say, most of those newspaper proprietors would think twice about getting out of bed for.

2:26She's attracted their ire because of her policy of applying VAT to private school fees, about which she has been unrepentant, but for which she has earned the title, courtesy of Badenock, as a spiteful class warrior. Philipson is an interesting figure beyond all of this, though. As I say, she's a close-kissed Starmer ally, often spoken of in glowing terms by the outgoing Prime Minister. Her officiant, unshowy style, her impressive backstory, appeal to Starmer, and she soared. She's also, again, without much ostentation, gone on with a quiet, but in its own way rather ruthless program of reform of England's schools.

3:05It's self-controversial with the accusation that she has undone the so-called good work of the Gove era for which there's been a rather cozy political and media consensus. Now like the rest of the Labour Party she must grapple with an uncertain future as a new era calls. So we thought in this really curious liminal space between Starmer and Burnham that it might be time to get the woman herself into the newsagent's studio. the charge is that she's a spiteful class warrior. Is she? And if she is, does she wear it with pride? Welcome to The News Agents.

3:44The News Agents. Well, Bridget Philipson, Education Secretary, welcome back to The News Agents. We are... I want to talk a little bit about this extraordinary feud that Kirby Baydenock seems to... I don't know if it is a feud. She seems to have a problem with you. I don't know if you have a problem with her. But we can talk about that a little bit because it has been a very notable feature of recent politics. But just thinking about politics in the round a little bit at the moment, this must be a very weird couple of weeks as a serving cabinet minister in the Starmer government. So we're still getting on and doing some really big things at the moment.

4:16Just last week, I announced the Teacher Pay Award with extra investment going into that. So we're still, you know, government continues and I'm still kind of doing the things that matter. But it's a period of mixed emotions, I suppose. I'm understandably really sad that it's ended this way for Kia, not least after he turned the party around, took us to a stunning election victory and has done so much these last two years. Would you say he's a friend of yours? He is a friend. And I feel personally sad for him and for his family. They've been through a lot and he reached a very difficult decision, but did so with grace and humility.

4:49And he wants what happens next to be a fantastic success. And so do I. And I suppose when I say mixed emotions, I also mean that this is a chance for us to, you know, move successfully towards hopefully winning the next general election. And I remain as confident as I was back in July 2024 that we can win the next election and Andy will take us on that next stage of the journey. Have you spoken to the prime minister about it and about the downfall and so on? How's he felt about it? I've had lots of conversations with him and I wouldn't share what they were. No, sure, but his general feeling. Well, you know, he has achieved so much and I will be forever grateful to Kia for the leadership that he's shown in terms of turning the Labour Party around when people thought it wouldn't be possible to overturn that 2019 defeat.

5:31He did. He proved people wrong. He took us to one of the best ever election victories in our party's history. But he also turned the Labour Party around at a point at which, you know, back in 2019, we had conversations, you know, conversations with journalists, you know, was the Labour Party finished? and he grasped that really awful issue of anti-Semitism. He turned the party around and whatever comes after this, Keir will go down to history as a brilliant election winner and he should take real pride in that. What he wants and what I want is for what comes next to be a success and he is genuine and sincere in wanting Andy to succeed and wanting the Labour Party to succeed.

6:09That's what I want because it is right for the country and I'll be doing everything I can to make sure that whatever part I have to play, I'll be fully focused on getting behind this Labour government. You don't think, as Margaret Thatcher famously said about herself, that he'll be a very good backseat driver? No, he's been really clear that that isn't the intention. Not his style. No, it's not his style. And it won't be the approach he takes. He's always been someone that has been ruthlessly focused on making sure that Labour wins. And that's what I want going into the next general election. It does require, though, doesn't it?

6:39And I know that you admire him. And as you say, he's a friend. And it does obviously require for Labour politicians now, including yourself, to reflect on how it did come to this. Because obviously, you're right, he achieved something extraordinary. No one thought it would be possible from 2019 to get back into government, given where it was in 2019. Obviously, the tourism implosion helped, but it wasn't the only factor. So he went from winning that historic majority to two years later, having exhausted his political authority. and that does require some theory as to why that happened to prevent it from happening again from a Labour point of view, right?

7:16So what's your theory as to why it happened? I've thought a lot about that and I will kind of share my thoughts. I think sometimes it's only with the passage of time that you really have a full understanding of exactly how things have worked out as they are. My instinct is that firstly, we didn't tell a good enough story about what we were doing. Individually, the policies were the right ones and I'm really proud of what I've delivered in education. But I think in terms of how that all fits together as a positive and hopeful narrative about the future of our country, I don't think we connected with the public.

7:49I think we were too gloomy early on. I think Keir accepts that as well. That famous press conference he did in a week or so after the election where he basically said things are going to get worse before they get better. That was a mistake. It was a mistake. And at a point at which people were nervous because it's a big leap of faith to overturn such one government in the way that it was done. and there was an extent to which people wanted the Tories out and the way to do that was to vote Labour but they wanted to believe that Labour that we had the right plan for the country and I don't think we successfully convinced people that that was where we were I think in addition to that there was some there's a number of areas where big mistakes were made I mean take winter fuel allowance for example take the where we got to on welfare reform those caused us unnecessary problems it's weird though when you look back though I when I just just speaking personally when we think about winter fuel I know it sort of dropped out of nowhere clearly the politics around it was poor but it was a declining benefit it was paid to people who obviously didn't need there's a political argument to be made that it does seem still weird to me in retrospect that it cut through in the way that it did and it seemed to generally that one thing it always was irrecoverable it seemed from there on which is peculiar it feels to me It was big and symbolic and I remember I do regular community events as a constituency MP just kind of town hall style, people can turn up.

9:09And the first one I did after the general election was kind of the very end of July. So after the winter fuel allowance announcement. And my God, it was an angry meeting. And it was the symbolism, but it was also people said, look, we voted Labour and we didn't vote for this. We didn't expect this. And we thought you would behave in a way that they just didn't think it was fair. Do you think there was a way of doing it that could have explained it? Sharper politics around it? Well, we got there. The problem was the policy. We got there with the right policy. which is that the wealthiest pensioners know they shouldn't be getting it.

9:38But actually the way in which it was set, the limit, actually captured a lot of people, including in my constituency, who are not affluent, not wealthy people, but have maybe got a little by way of savings or have got a small widow's pension, whatever it might be, and therefore were set to lose their winter fuel allowance. The trouble was we then got to a better position on the policy, but we didn't actually explain that we changed it. So I still to this day have people saying to me, you took away my winter fuel allowance, even though they've had it. On the basis of what they've told me, they have almost certainly got it back.

10:05right but so it's those kinds of things and i think the trouble is it has crowded out some amazing achievements you know you look at the employment rights act the renters rights act massive upgrades in terms of rights for working people where they live how they live their lives rights in the workplace greater protections and that's alongside all the things i'm obviously personally proud of that we've done in education both some of the the practical changes in the short term that will make a big difference whether that's the huge expansion in child care free school meals in September, new free breakfast clubs, but also being willing to grapple with and confront some of the longstanding challenges that previous governments had run away from.

10:42You know, take SEND reform, for example. It's far from done. We've had a big consultation and we'll set out next steps. But there were lots of people who said to me, it's just too difficult, don't bother, don't try, especially after what had happened around welfare reform. It's just too hard. And actually, I think it shows what can be done if you try and take people with you, you explain what you're trying to do, and you make sure that people are involved in the design of that, no matter how difficult the policy. And it is really tricky because this is obviously children who've been through awful experiences, parents who are really bruised by a system that has failed them.

11:15But I think we are taking people with us, building confidence, but there's an awful lot more to do on that front. Do you buy the idea that one of the problems, and some of your own colleagues have said this to me and it's been well rehearsed, but the idea that Keir Starmer himself was just not an especially politically effective prime minister, i.e. that he didn't really have much connection with the public. You and I both know that whether it's fair or not, you know, he does has seemed to attract a kind of visceral loathing for whatever reason, which might not really seem commensurate with the kind of political profile he has, but it is there and that he just wasn't sufficiently political.

11:54I think there is a disconnect, I think, in terms of Keir's public persona and who he is as an individual. And I don't quite know why that is, but I think there is a disconnect because the Keir Starmer I know is someone who is just a very straightforward, down-to-earth person who's in politics for the right reasons. He genuinely is. I mean, I think most politicians are, but I think Keir really feels that he felt a real sense of profound responsibility and wanted to do the right thing for the country. And ultimately, that was why he took the decision to resign, because he felt that was right for the party and right for the country and i think that's the measure of him as a man um you and i have spoken before about um the ability of modern politics and modern politicians and the modern media to maybe absorb difficulty and the extent to which perhaps there is post-brexit a kind of addiction to kind of political sugar and that you know that and everyone is sort of part of that mps are part of it there's a whatsapp thing there's a media thing is do you think that's part the problem?

12:52Because I mean, that's, and if it is, that's going to be something for the incoming government to deal with as well. I think the fact the media landscape and the way people consume news and the way that MPs interact with one another has changed is certainly a factor. But I think it's the reality. So there's a little point moaning about it. I do wonder whether you'd have a Harold Wilson today, though, for example, someone who can mount that kind of comeback, you know, reinvent himself. Would that happen today? It feels like people are kind of, once you're done, you're done. Or maybe we just haven't had politicians of Wilson's quality.

13:24I mean, he was exceptional. He was exceptional. But I think no matter how exceptional, I think the landscape in terms of how fast things move, partly connected to just people's ability to access information, which is not a bad thing. It's here to stay. So as I say, there's no point complaining about it. Do you think the new MPs, for example, do you think they've got, you know, do you think they've got the necessary kind of political shock absorption? I do. But I think what also happened, And this was a kind of a collective failing on behalf of those of us who'd been there longer. I did a lot of work with my new colleagues and particularly on centre reform.

13:58But I think a lot of my new colleagues arrived in Parliament, having had a clear sense of what they were doing before and found Parliament, it's an odd place to work and you're part of a team, but it can be quite lonely. And they didn't always feel fully involved in the work of the government. And that, I think, is not an unreasonable expectation. One of the things that it feels to me that sort of gone wrong, or maybe not gone wrong, but it is a disconnect. You talked about the disconnect. Something that Keir Starmer has often liked to say, and there is clearly a strong element of truth to it.

14:30He says, you know, this is, I think he says the, but I think the more accurate way of saying it probably, this is certainly one of the most working class cabinets that there's ever been. Certainly in the sense of background. I mean, maybe not in terms of immediate profession before going into politics, But certainly, you know, most of the people around that cabinet table are from backgrounds like yours or backgrounds like mine. They're often, you know, they're from working class backgrounds, often the first in their family to go to university and so on. And that's a big success story. And yet you and I both know that if you said probably to your average person that Keir Starmer's cabinet is full of working class people, they would probably find that risible, comical, ridiculous.

15:03And it allows certain forces who are certainly not working class to pose actually as the absolute friend of working class people. How do you overcome that? So people are right to be sceptical in a sense because, you know, I'm very proud to be from a working class background. Yeah. But I have a very different life now. I have a very different life to the kind of life I had growing up. Yeah, I feel so. It's very hard sometimes. Am I working class now? Sort of, but clearly not. So it is a hard thing to kind of do. And I feel incredibly fortunate. I think as a constituency MP, though, you are always on the sharp end of understanding what people feel and their experiences day to day.

15:36And I take that really seriously because, you know, I feel so lucky to be in the position that I'm in. and to be in a position to actually do something about it for the next generation of young people growing up in the situation that I was in. I think where it does make a difference, however, in terms of having people from those kinds of backgrounds is there wouldn't be an Employment Rights Act without it. There wouldn't be the biggest reduction coming in child poverty in any parliament ever if we didn't have people at the cabinet table who really cared about making sure that you've got good rights at work, you've got protections when things go wrong, you take action to make sure the background doesn't determine what children go on to achieve in life.

16:14You know, there's a reason the Tories don't do that. There's a philosophical point. They don't actually care about that stuff. They think people should just be left to get on with it would be my, you know, you either, you sink or swim. And my view has always been that the role of government, the role of the state, is about giving people the freedom to make the choices that are right for them, doing the things that only government can do. And it is not freedom, it's not just the absence of constraint. it is the full range of choice that should be available to people to choose how they want to live their lives and I think sometimes we're seen on the left as being people that want to tell others what to do tell them how to live their lives you know be judgmental for me it's it's the opposite I want people to have real options real choices genuine freedom whereas too many lives are constrained by things like poverty that mean no matter how hard you work you're not going to have the life that you want because some of that has already been determined at quite a young age it's interesting that isn't it that that um conversation around freedom or the concepts of freedom which which people i mean roy hatterley just died of course he famously oh well maybe not famously now but i mean i suppose in my mind he's famous he wrote a book about freedom in the 1980s and about how the labor party or the left more generally should should reclaim freedom as a political concept because at that time obviously it was so associated with margaret thatcher and and still i think you know people think they think of freedom they think of it as a right-wing idea but there is a really powerful argument that you've just articulated that it can be a very left-wing idea because as you say you know you can have lots of freedom from all you like but if you don't have freedom to i you don't have the economic power to actually exercise though freedom what's the point why do you think i'm always intrigued that the left and labor doesn't make more of freedom as a political idea no one really talks about it why do you think that is i mean i love hatter's lee spook and it was an inspiration to me when i read it many years ago and i gave a speech yesterday um 50 years on from Jim Callaghan's speech at Ruskin on on education I gave a 50 years on speech about that and the debate he wanted about education exactly and the theme part a big part of the theme yesterday was around education as freedom so the freedom to give people choices over their lives and the argument I was making was that that has to start early on because it's in those first early years of a child's life that so much will be determined unless we take action and why I was making the argument for a big expansion in childcare, universal childcare, so that every child, no matter their background, starts school in the best possible position.

18:34Because now, you know, less well-off children arrive months behind their more affluent peers. That gap widens. And then many of those young people, as Alan Milburn's report has shown, end up not in education, employment or training. So it's what will happen. You know, it's not, it's the absence of choice those young people will have later on because of decisions that were or weren't taken when they were much younger. Have you liked being Education Secretary? Best job in government. What surprised you about it in terms of like being in Whitehall and the machine? I mean, I was like so many of us entirely new to government.

19:08I think we've actually been able to drive things forward pretty fast. If you're clear about what you want to do, I've just been struck by how amazing so many civil servants are. If you've got a clear agenda, you know what you want to deliver. it will deliver for you. So you disagree with that? I mean, the Prime Minister articulated the idea of civil servants who are stuck in the kind of tepid bath of decline. You don't recognise that? My experience at the Department for Education is that the team there are just so committed, so dedicated. They choose to be, many, many people choose to be there because education is something that they feel very profoundly.

19:44And they will do so in a way that is entirely upholding the best traditions of the civil service, which is political neutrality, good advice to ministers about the risks and the kind of trade-offs that are involved. But there's a reason we've been able to deliver a curriculum assessment review and a new curriculum that's coming, big expansion in free school meals, the SEND reform, the school's white paper. I mean, we've charted a course to the end of the parliament on every element of education from our early years through to post-16. And that is a big undertaking in just over two years. and I think it shows what can be achieved if you've got a clear sense of what you want to do.

20:21Would you like to stay as Education Secretary? Of course I would. If you had any choice, that's what you'd like to do. Of course I would because it's been such a privilege to do this job for two years. But these are, of course, questions for the new Prime Minister and he will reach his own decisions. I'm not going to seek to influence that. That's for Andy to decide. Well, we're going to talk a little bit about what you've done in education but also how it is perceived by some in politics anyway, right after this.

21:04So Bridget Phillips, an Education Secretary, you have been, it seems to me, in this government, one of the kind of sort of lightning roads for political attack from the press and from others. I think Ed Miliband has been a very significant one in terms of what he's done from energy. But I think, you know, you've been right up there. Attracting the ire, it seems to me, it feels to me there's been a consensus in education quite a long time. The Gove reforms and so on are considered a kind of unalloyed good. And it sort of precedes or was, you know, the Blair reforms and academies and so on before that.

21:36Now, I don't think it seems to me that you've tried to upend that, but you've certainly tried, you've certainly done slightly different things or had different points of emphasis. Why do you think you've attracted such ire from some of these people? part of me i don't really know in some ways i find some of it a bit bemusing and a kind of huge overreaction at times to what i think are pretty straightforward changes that will benefit children but i think a part of it is that i am actually getting on and doing things and they don't like the agenda because it's a dodds with their political worldview so i think it probably demonstrates that what i'm doing is effective if they're so hostile to it well they say that you're hostile to working class aspirations.

22:18Which, of course, given your background, is quite peculiar, is a peculiar charge. But that's what they say. They say that you are undoing the reforms, the Gove era reforms built on the kind of Andrew Adonis, Blair era reforms, which have been so successful in transforming English education. That's the charge that they put to you. I think that is a total misunderstanding, not just of what I'm seeking to do, but also a total misunderstanding of the so-called consensus that you described. Now, it just doesn't exist in the way that they would have it. So the consensus that is there is that over a 30, 40 year period, it became very clear that high quality teaching was essential.

22:52That's why teaching became a fully graduate profession in the way it wasn't even when I was at school. We have clear accountability around schools, clear expectations and a set of assessments that allow us to check whether working class kids in particular are achieving all that they should. And if they aren't, the means by which we can intervene to turn that around. What didn't happen over an extended period of time post-Golfe, Golfe had a clear agenda and he drove it forward. What happened after that was far less clear. There was a lot of drift. Academisation was seen as the only route to improving school standards.

23:22Lots of schools were allowed to drift along, even where standards were not improving for working class kids. And they were pretty unaccountable sometimes as well, some of these schools. They were accountable directly to the Secretary of State. And we had schools that became academies and progress then didn't follow. So for many schools, a change of leadership, a change of direction, yes, of course, that can be critical. But there are schools today that became academies in 2011, 2012, and that have never been anything other than equivalent requires improvement or inadequate. Now, something's gone wrong there, and that's why I've brought in the RISE programme to intervene much earlier in schools that are not performing.

23:58So this so-called consensus, look, the academies programme under Labour was worlds away from what it later became under Michael Gove. you would expect that. I mean, Michael Gove did a pretty good job of persuading people that actually the agenda he was pursuing was in line with the agenda that the last Labour government pursued. That is simply not the case. Of course, there are some aspects around a continued expansion of academies, but the last Labour government's academies programme had a focus particularly on disadvantaged communities with real focus on those that were not delivering, but with extra support that went alongside it.

24:31What happened under Gove and what happened beyond that was not the same thing it wasn't the same program you wouldn't expect it to be it was a conservative secretary of state but actually what we saw in recent years in education was just drift and indifference generally speaking in favor of what gov did i'm in favor of things like phonics which i think have been proven to work um the idea that schools should all schools should become academies a drive towards that what do you think about that so i've set out in the white paper that i want all schools to be in a group and i think that is the right way forward we've got you know 80 odd almost 90 percent of secondary schools now in in groups of schools and smaller numbers of primaries and that will take longer.

25:05But I think it is right that schools, particularly in their local communities, collaborate, work together. But I've also said that local authorities will also be able to establish their own trusts if that's the approach you take. So you wouldn't say you're trying to undo the Govira reforms, but you are trying to change them or trying to put a stop on some of the excesses of it. I think there's two points I would say. Addressing some of what didn't work, because some of it, where it was rooted in the evidence, was effective and did work. But there were other areas where, for example, it was clear pretty, it's been clear for some time that we have a big attainment gap in terms of outcomes.

25:36And basically nothing was done in any meaningful way to address that. But the other point is that, and I think Gove himself has said in recent days that the way in which they dismantled Sure Start was a mistake. You can only achieve so much by school reform. You can only achieve so much in terms of what happens within schools. It's also what happens beyond the school gate and what happens before children arrive at school that makes often an even bigger impact in terms of what they go on to achieve. So if you dismantle Shoestart, if you push children into poverty, if you take away all of the help to families, it is absolutely essential.