80. Bridget Phillipson: Can we save Britain's schools?

23:32And not disagreeing with anything you're saying, but for those children who will have their education disrupted, and what you're saying is you don't think it will be very many, but there will be some where parents will be unable to afford. What support will you be providing for those children as they leave one school and move into another? Access to a good state school. Two points. Firstly, schools can seek to absorb that cost. So the schools have choices in terms of how they price their fees, what level of provision they offer. There has been frankly an arms race where it comes to capital expenditure around many private schools.

24:02State schools in recent years have had some really tough choices to make and I think private schools might like to consider how they cut their cloth. Secondly, we're actually in a situation right now where we are seeing big falling rules right across the country because of the falling birth rate. I don't accept that there'll be large numbers of children leaving, but we're already in a position where schools are merging and closing because of the falling numbers of children coming through the school system. So there is ample space. But I just don't accept the premise of it. I guess it's not a question of space.

24:29It's a question of the children. It's a question of their lives, their education. It's disruptive to have to move school in the middle of your time. So there's a lot of the conversation seems to be around finances and numbers, but not very much around the actual children. I just gently observe that 93 % of children in our country go to state schools. And I think this is the right thing to do. It sucks up an enormous amount of interest for what is a relatively small part of our school system. And I think it's absolutely right that I'm asked questions about the impact of policy. Have we considered all the implications, which absolutely we have done.

25:03But I want to make sure the 93 % of children in our state schools have the teachers they need, the support that they need, and the mental health provision that they need. and we would use that money to deliver more teachers, more mental health support, better training and development for teachers within the state system. I think that should be the priority of an education secretary to focus on the majority of children within our state sector. On education more generally, so famous Tony Blair soundbite asked me my three priorities for government and I tell you education, education, education. We interviewed David Blunkett on Leading recently and he said that he felt education had gone down the political agenda since those days.

25:37and also I think getting an assessment of your priorities it seems to me that child care is as important to you as anything within the policy I'm not talking about you as an individual here as a policymaker so is child care fundamentally an education policy is it a social policy is an economic policy and would you agree that education has come down the political agenda we need to get it back up it has and it's my job to get it back up the agenda I think that's easier to do from government than from opposition. And when I've looked at the salience of education as an issue in the run into 97 and beyond, it was actually when Labour were in government, where we were doing a lot around schools, that the salience of education as an issue particularly started to increase.

26:16And there were kind of key moments where policy was announced, where changes happened that really cut through with the public. And David Blunkett is just an amazing man. And it's been a real pleasure to spend so much time speaking to him about his experiences. I think there's an awful lot that I've taken from his approach from opposition and then into government and an awful lot that I've learned from him but I do regard childcare and earlier's education as a central part of our education system and it was clear to me from taking on this role back in November 2021 that it was the big unaddressed area of education policy in our country if we can get it right when children are younger if we can set them up to succeed then so much more is unlocked and what I hear right across the country from schools is that by the time children arrive in reception they've already started to slip behind we see a widening attainment gap the pandemic has accelerated that admittedly and the children that are starting to arrive at school now are of that COVID generation who experience the most serious impacts of isolation from family and friends but for me if we could really transform early years education and child care that would make the single biggest difference to children's life chances and the single biggest difference across our school system.

27:25And it wouldn't be simpler just to reinstate Sure Start. Is that something you could consider? We do need to find a way of bringing together family services in terms of the wider support that families need, absolutely. But you'll recall that it was a policy that were announced from government in 1998, not a policy that we'd committed to ahead of an election. But I am really struck by the emerging evidence, including reports that have just been published this year from the IFS, for example, that show not only did Shure Start cut hospital admissions and save money for the NHS, it also led to an improvement in terms of outcomes and grades for young people who were able to benefit from a Shure Start centre.

28:03One caveat I would say is that it does demonstrate, however, that the earlier part of the Shure Start rollout was more effective than later stages. So while Shure Start overall was an amazing and effective policy, I think just to simply seek to recreate something that ended in 2010 in 2024 might not be the right approach either. What's this earlier part? Which were the bits which worked better? So it changed in nature and scope over time. It had different purposes at different points. The initial phase, and this is the phase I remember well because I was in Sunderland at that point and was latterly involved in some of the work that the Sure Start centres were doing.

28:37What made it really effective was that it engaged families and communities more actively in the delivery of services and in the shape and design of services. So just to give one very small example, but I think is instructive. Lots of dads wanted Saturday morning activities, for example. The professionals involved in delivering those services probably would have never thought, let's open up on a Saturday morning. But the dads were saying, look, we're working during the week. We want to be able to access services on a Saturday. The other thing that families really wanted was a safe indoor play space.

29:06They wanted some kind of soft play because they often didn't have gardens, didn't have safe outdoor spaces. By listening to parents and families, responding to what they're telling us and using that as the basis for shaping services so that you can engage people. If people are coming to use that soft play, then you can have a conversation about nutrition, about sleeping, about health visitors can do so in a way that isn't necessarily just the heavy hand of the state being intrusive in people's lives. And it can feel sometimes intrusive to families. And then the data suggests that some of the later stuff was less effective.

29:37What was the difference with the later stuff and what's your theory on why it was maybe less effective? I'm not sure it engaged families and communities quite as effectively. And what was it and why was it less engaging? The programme evolved over time and there did become more focus on supporting people into work too, which I absolutely think is the right thing to do. And the part about Sure Start that I think gets often overlooked is the impact it had in terms of people's ability to get involved in volunteering, get back into training and education. But it became a bigger programme with less of a focus on involving families.

30:06And the lesson I would take from... It became more sort of bureaucratic and NGO led with less family volunteer involvement over time? I think there was a bit less of the tailoring to local circumstance than had been the case in the earlier phases. So for me, the lesson from that is you have to strike the balance between the kind of core services you would want any SureStart centre to provide, plus where's the ability for communities to shape what goes on within the centre. So here's a really good example. This is a great policy from New Labour, SureStart, which has now been completely validated by all this research and data to have been incredibly effective.

30:39You've looked at it, you've analysed, you've even found which bit of it was the best bit and which bit worked less well. Why is it not in the manifesto? Because sadly, the economy is in a total mess and it will take us time to rebuild. And there'll be lots that's in the manifesto around education. But in this area, I only want to make commitments that I am absolutely confident that we can deliver on and deliver on quickly. And a programme like Sure Start. How much did it cost? It was substantial. It was a substantial investment. Like sort of billions, tens of billions? Yeah, absolutely. Which was shown to be not just cost effective, but to save the NHS money, for example, and to lead to better outcomes.

31:17So you would have thought that you could sort of borrow against those savings, no? I would love to be able to commit to more. Of course, of course I would. And there is so much... You see Rachel Reeves sitting on that shoulder as we speak. Well, I was Rachel's Shadow Chief Secretary as well. So it was my job to go around telling people that they weren't allowed to spend anything. So I've got to practice what I preach. Okay, let's take a quick break.

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33:03What's your sense been of this campaign? I mean, it's a very, very, very strange campaign, this to me. I've been involved in a lot of election campaigns. It feels like we're halfway through and one team is going around basically looking like they've given up and the other team is going around thinking, well, we'd take the ball into the corner flag anyway. Is that a fair assessment? I mean, it's, you know, this will be my fifth general election as a candidate, the first time I've been in the shadow cabinet for a general election. So it's different on lots of levels for me personally. What I really love about it is just the chance to get out around the country.

33:40It sounds like you're avoiding the question. No, no, no, I just... You're going to give us a lovely portrait of how much you enjoy the campaign, but he asked you about the two teams and what they're up to. Because with the greatest respect, I'm actually not that interested in that, which is why I'm just taking it to getting out around the country because that's the bit I love. You know, we've been wanting this election for so long. Now we've got it. I'm just enjoying the opportunity to actually persuade people to vote Labour. Bridget, elections aren't about the participants. They're about the public.

34:06Yeah. And you're talking to the different public, if you're not talking to the public that I've been meeting a lot of, who are kind of, oh, God, can't we just get over with? That sort of sense of, you know, it just feels a very, very strange atmosphere for an election to me. Look, there's some different dynamics going on. You get a lot of people saying, everything is so broken, how on earth are any of you going to fix that? That is a really big issue. And I think there is a fundamental question of demonstrating that politics can be a force for good and governments can actually change things when it just feels that at the moment nothing works.

34:37And if you take like just the personality, so Rishi Sunak did his manifesto and it was full of this and full of this and promise and tax cut and blah, blah, blah. And that's his approach. Is it Keir's personality in a way that is saying, you've already said, I'm only going to promise things that I know I can deliver. Is it a personality thing here that is sort of slightly worried about over promising? No, I think it goes to that point about trust in politics. And I think people's trust in politics and politicians to actually get things done and make a difference isn't great at the moment. And I spend a lot of time just having to be quite upfront about both the scale of the challenge and how we will fix it and the time it will take if we form that next government.

35:16And that's why I think Keir is right to talk about a decade of national renewal, because the problems that have built up over the last 14 years will not be solved overnight. And I wish that I could kind of wave a magic wand and sort it all. But I do think we have to level with the public because I think were we to make kind of grandiose promises, I don't think, one, I don't think people would buy it. And two, I think it would be fundamentally corrosive to trust in politics. I wonder whether you, and this is going to sound something I don't mean to say, but it slightly sounds as though your analysis is basically that the problem is a bunch of ignorant, uncaring Tories we're in for the last 14 years, and that's why we're all screwed.

35:53And when good people who care about social justice come in, it's going to be great. My sense is there's a lot of things apart from the horrors of the Tory party, which make governing Britain very difficult. And I had a lot of colleagues, and I was in cabinet myself, who I felt were incredibly hardworking, trying very hard, and a lot of things don't work. And it wasn't simply that we were hopeless, or cruel, or uncaring. And I wonder to what extent you're able to step back and see some of the bigger structural problems that surround Britain, our economy, our demography, which are going to make it pretty tough for anybody who comes in and maybe have a little bit more sympathy for what's happened over the last 14 years.

36:37So firstly, I think the problems have become particularly acute in the last three to five years because we've had a party I don't think that's been actually focused on governing or making good decisions. That's not to say what I would regard what came before as being particularly wonderful, but it's been most acute in recent years. And I think it's left our country weakened. It's, you know, led to, frankly, you know, you travel internationally. You know, I've been able to travel a bit in terms of looking at other countries' education systems. People just say, what on earth are you lot doing and what on earth has been going on in Britain?

37:10And I'm proud of our country, but I want to be able to, you know, be prouder still. And it hasn't felt that way in recent years. But I think you do have to look back if you've been in government for 14 years. I would just think that's quite a long time to make your mark, to set the country in the direction that you would wish. And if you look back after such a period of time and think, is the country in better shape than which we found it? I agree with you 100%. I agree. It's pathetic. Productivity hasn't shifted since 2008. The economy's contracted since 2019. We're performing very, very badly internationally.

37:43actually. But if you were looking at it from the United States or Germany, you would probably say the big problems here are not that it was a bunch of Tories rather than Labour. You would say the big problems are Brexit, demography, we're getting very old. We haven't sorted out our immigration policy. The patterns of global trade are turning against us. We've never worked out how to do productivity and skills in this country. We don't know how to build infrastructure, etc, etc. So the reason why people are not hugely optimistic is because they can see that there are big kind of historical structural issues here which I agree with you and Liz Truss and Boris Johnson just make the whole thing worse but I think unless you're kind of facing those it's going to be tough to be honest about what's likely to happen over the next 10 years.

38:24Look I don't doubt for one second that there are big global challenges and that there are structural challenges that we face as a country I don't question that for one second but I think that the risk with that argument is that you can get to a place where you almost deny kind of agency to your own government in shaping some of that. And I do think there is more that we could do to shape some of that, whether that's demography, as you were talking about there, or skills policy. How are you going to shape demography? Well, I think there is, for example, I think there is a really big, and this is happening kind of across the Western world, it's happening here too, about the falling birth rate in our country.

38:58There are lots of reasons for that. I'm not suggesting it's straightforward. I think it's a complex issue. Other countries, as I say, are grappling with this. But because housing costs are so high, because the cost of childcare is so high, because work isn't as secure as it should be, I believe, because the safety net that a lot of people have depended upon around social security isn't there in the way that it was. I believe that people are making decisions about family size driven by economic circumstance to a much greater degree than was the case previously. And that does have consequences in the long term for our country.

39:27Now, that's not for me about politicians saying to people, you should have a family of whatever size. I personally believe that family should be a broad concept in which we value a range of different kind of structures I come from what people would have in the past called a non-traditional family but for me it's about the love that families give not the size or shape but at the same time I speak to too many people across the country who tell me they would have loved to have another child but they just couldn't afford it and I think that's where government can come in in terms of responding to what is a trend.

39:54So might you also include a kind of a very straightforward de Gaulle type breed for our future message? No I think it's about the wider conditions that allow people to make choices. I think it's largely economic imperative that's driving some of that decision-making at the moment. And, you know, we need to take action, for example, on insecure housing, on the fact that lots of people can't afford to buy a home or the homes aren't there, and the cost of childcare. I mean, all of these are drivers, I think, that are pushing people to make decisions about either deferring having a family or limiting family size.

40:26And that's to the point about choice and the role for government in giving people a greater degree of control over how they live their lives. It's very interesting. I mean, I'm not sure about the data because there are a lot of much more equal wealthy societies that aren't having kids. So I'm not sure that that's true, but maybe, maybe. I think it's complex. I think there are different drivers and part of it is that, which is a good thing, people start work later in their lives than would have been the case 100 years ago. People do live longer as well alongside that, which is wonderful, but brings with it challenges that we need to respond to as well.

40:57Two of the other kind of big factors people look at, COVID, Ukraine. Where are you on national security? Because it looks kind of scary to me. Alice is more cheered up by the European election results. But I look at Germany, I look at France, I look at Italy, I look at Putin's up to, I mean, there's a kind of 1930s feel. Do you feel that there is a real looming crisis and emergency facing the world and that any government coming in is going to have to really step up in terms of addressing the global crisis? I think the trends that we see are alarming and not least where it comes to Russia, Ukraine and the impact that's had here.

41:33And the fact that we have been so exposed, I mean, that's had wider kind of domestic consequences arising out of international considerations. But it's also why it's essential that we have a more stable government here in the UK. I think we can and should be a bigger player in some of this, even outside of the European Union. I think there is a role for Britain in that. Well, you know, we're a NATO member. member we have influence around the world our kind of soft power as you will know where it comes to the numbers of people that will come and study here for example and then return home i think we have a reach around the world that we need to understand but that we need to be careful we don't limit we're talking about european union though you take macron who is a formidable politician in many many ways and yet is now has seen this sort of pretty remarkable rise of the far right there Schultz in Germany who's come in, country felt good about it and very very quickly because they haven't really delivered, far right has been on the rise there as well.

42:32Do you feel that sense of responsibility that if a left of centre social democratic government comes in here and doesn't address a lot of these big systemic challenges that we face then that threat exists here as well? I think there is a volatility and there's certainly a volatility in terms of people's voting behaviour, if Labour manages to win this general election, that will be a massive turnaround from 2019 that was in and of itself a big shift. So I think that shows that what can swing can swing against you. And I think people are less fixed in terms of how they will vote and party allegiance than would have been the case in the past.

43:11So if we form that next government, demonstrating very quickly that we have earned people's trust and are delivering will be absolutely crucial. You know the North East very well, and you must have been horrified by what Boris Johnson did with this Red Wall stuff. Can you explain that? How was he able to do that in 2019? Why did so many people that you know and in a constituency surrounding you vote Tory when those were traditional Labour seats? A combination of factors. I mean, Boris Johnson was an unusual politician in many ways and had a charismatic appeal. I think it would be undeniable to lose sight of that.

43:46Jeremy Corbyn was a big factor, really big factor. Brexit came into it, but far less so than Jeremy Corbyn. I mean, some of it was a vote for Boris Johnson. Some of it was a vote against where the Labour Party had got to. And there was an awful lot of despair amongst traditional Labour voters who felt that we turned our backs on them and it wasn't the Labour Party that they'd voted for in the past. But they were the people who, after Partygate in particular, who felt the most betrayed and most let down because they'd, for the first time in their lives, had put their trust in the Conservative Party and just felt there was a slap in the face.

44:18And that was the moment. I think it happened more quickly than people noticed. And just going back to, you used this phrase, before that, they felt betrayed and let down. What is it that they felt betrayed? What sort of things were you hearing on doorsteps that made people in 2019 feel betrayed? They felt that the Labour Party was out of step with their priorities. It wasn't the party that had been the party their family had voted for traditionally. Sort of examples of that? Examples would be particularly around national security. They felt that they were concerned as to whether we would keep the country safe.

44:47But was that already starting under us when Tony and Gordon were in charge? Was that already starting? I mean, there was some of it there, I would say, in 2015, but it massively accelerated. 2017 was a funny election in lots of different ways. It came up then, but not to the same degree. By 2019, people had made their minds up about where the Labour Party was and they didn't much like it. And it was, for a lot of people, that was a really upsetting experience. You know, I would speak to people on doors who would be really upset, genuinely upset about the fact they didn't feel they could support a party that they had supported all of their lives.

45:20Some of those people did vote Conservative. Some people just stayed at home. So in your patch, how many of those have come back? Well, we'll find out soon enough, I guess. But I think there is a recognition that Kia has turned the Labour Party around and we're back to where we need to be in line with their priorities. But again, for people that have moved away from us and have then come back, we can't take that for granted. And we have to demonstrate that we're going to hold to what we have promised. Coming towards the very end, I've got hopefully a fun last question, but penultimate question before I go fun.

45:49What do you make about what was good and what was bad about what Michael Gove and is it Nick Gibb did with their education reforms? So what I would say about Michael Gove in particular was that he brought a real sense of drive and determination. He was clear about what he wanted to do right from the outset. He got on with it and he made it happen. And there is a lesson in that, I believe. they also took the evidence of what was working and developed it further so the conservatives will talk a lot about the rollout of phonics across schools absolutely and i've had this conversation with nick gibb as well and gently pointed out that it was under labour that we first started that they then continued it i think that does show the benefit of continuity of policy making in areas such as education another example i would give would be it was the conservatives who brought in a national curriculum that's i think was a fine development i believe we need to reform the curriculum that we've got at the moment.

46:38But there are areas, I think, where continuity across education policymaking is important. There are changes that I would want to make, however, if I were Education Secretary. But that sense of focus and drive, I think Michael brought education far more central to the work of the Conservative government than would have been the case otherwise. And that's certainly a lesson I take away. Give me a couple of changes you'd like to see in the curriculum. So we'll have an expert-led review of curriculum assessment overall. I think there is a real issue around creativity in our state schools and the lack of access that state school students have to music, sport, art and drama.

47:10I don't think that should be the preserve of just those whose parents can afford to pay for extras on a weekend or after school and I want to make that a really important part of the curriculum in the future. Also it feels for all we've had a focus on reading and on phonics and I support that. We've kind of forgotten about early maths in particular so a real focus on early maths, on numeracy and on making sure that our children have got a solid foundation there. We're slipping behind as a country on that. My final question, can you think of an intriguing question that you've ever had in a political interview, which has allowed you to show a different side of yourself or go in a direction that interested you as opposed to being kind of hit in the normal way?

47:48No is the answer. And I will try to address this. The questions actually that are toughest, I do a lot of school visits. Actually, the questions that kids will ask you are usually far more to the point. And there's a directness and a simplicity because they're not worrying about how does this sound or can I really ask that and they're the hardest questions to answer just why is there poverty in the world or you know why is it that you all shout at each other in parliament whatever it might be and actually you know spending a lot of time around children and young people as I do genuinely that is often a lot tougher than some of the more kind of traditional political questions that you would get where you can kind of weave your way through it a bit if you want to I was hoping you were going to provide me with a nice, fun question for you, but I'm just going to have to finish with why is there poverty in the world?

48:36Oh, I think we go back to our kind of class-based discussion where we began. The structural inequality that people experience is what I would say. Well, thank you and enjoy the rest of the campaign. Thank you. Thank you. so Rory you asked directly to the shadow secretary of state for education how to get a Tory like you over into the Labour camp so how far into the Labour camp did she tempt you not very far sadly I mean I was hoping that she would reach out in a way that Angela Reitner tried to and say okay I'm going to try to put myself in your shoes I'm going to try to show some respect maybe just something like, listen, you could easily deal with me by saying, oh, well, you know, the Tory party's two things.

49:21There's this kind of horrible kind of far right populist well-abroadment thing, but then there's a good one nation tradition and there were Tory MPs that I really liked and respected like you, Rory or Ken Clark. And, you know, we'd welcome you into the party and, you know, and actually some of Keir Starmer's rhetoric, you know, as you've pointed out, is kind of appealing to people like me, but she doesn't want to go there or she doesn't, I mean, I don't know. I think she is very embedded in a worldview where somebody with my background, my privilege, my accent is not a friend. And she's not going to put much thought into working out how to persuade me to vote for her.

49:58Do you think so? I don't know. Is that not how she came across to you? I don't know. It's interesting. I think she's got a real warmth to her. But I think that there is, and maybe it's partly because we are in the middle of a campaign. Right. And I mean, she didn't even, even those of us who watch this rather than listen to it. I think when I was putting the sense of the Tories have vacated the field, but even with the goal of wide open Labour taking it to the corner flag, I sort of sensed cheek out of what I was saying. And likewise, when you were talking about wealth tax, I think she'd love to be able to say, God, I wish we could do that.

50:33So I think there is something about a bit sort of restrained because of the campaign, because of collective responsibility. And all of that. And I think she was. I mean, I felt that she's absolutely got no qualms about saying that as far as she's concerned, this policy on private school fees, she wasn't really listening. She wasn't really. She's not she's going to worry about the 93 percent, not the few that may have to leave to go into state schools. But I was. And you see, again, I mean, it's absolutely nothing to do with me. But in communication terms, again, you could say, of course, I care about every child in the country.

51:06and you know we will of course be working with these schools to make sure that children who come in are properly incorporated supported you said how what systems you've got in place yeah but you don't you don't need to say to my saying how about the children frankly i care about the 93 percent because that slightly sounds like you're saying i care less well i do i i do think though if i wrote my new european column about this last week i think there is something a bit weird about the fact that we've had so many state schools have actually closed had to close and nobody bats an eyelid so much sort of stuff going wrong in schools and the media don't really care about it and i think that's probably where she is she i think she is she probably doesn't care that much whether some may have to leave a private school to go to a state school because i think she's coming from a place that says there's nothing wrong with state schools provided the government you know supports them so any child shifting education yeah you need a bit of support i mean You changed schools.

52:05I did and I hated it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did. And I think the other thing I was trying to, as we were talking, I was trying to have in my head, as I always do during campaigns, if I wasn't you and I wasn't me, but I was somebody who is sort of trying to decide what to do in this election, trying to decide whether Labour would be a good government. I think she'd make a good impression on people who are just dipping in and out of this campaign. I think people would think she's nice, she's human, she's empathetic. I think what you were looking for, and I would like a bit more as well, was just a sense.

52:40And again, I think this may be the fact we're in a campaign mode. I felt, for example, with Wes streaking, I felt with Alex Chalk, actually, when we were talking to Alex Chalk the other day, that there was a part of the mind that was going beyond where they are in the campaign. Yeah, a couple of things. I mean, it's so difficult to know how much is personality, how much is training, how much is campaign. The things that were interesting to me is 99 % of MPs, if you say, listen, the House of Commons is a bit crap and screwed up, will say, yeah, of course it is. A lot of it was infuriating. I found the whole thing absolutely mad.

53:16I was able to have very little impact. And she didn't really didn't want to go there. She was just like, it's such a privilege. I got to ask, you know, PMQs. Ditto when you were like, you know, this campaign's a bit weird. She was like, I love getting out on things. So here are my possible explanations. Number one, she's a very, very positive, optimistic human being who basically either doesn't see or doesn't want to dwell on any of the downsides or difficulties of life. And maybe that was implicit in her talking about her father. I just don't want to think about, you know, my father at all. And I'm fine.

53:46It's all great. Secondly, she is a professional politician beyond professional politician. She says she went to her first Labour meetings at the age of two. She joined the party at 15. She was running the Labour club at university. She became an MP. I entered Parliament with me. I didn't realise that she was sort of 25? 26. 26 when she came into Parliament with us. So maybe there's that. You know, you are the professional politician. And this is the new style of political communication, which is all respect for. I'm going to win an election. We're going to do our business. I'm not interested in being charming.

54:17I'm not interested in being funny. I'm not interested in taking any risk to go off on some anecdote about the weirdness of Parliament or my life or the action campaign. I'm just going to land the blows. And I did feel that a bit with Rachel Reeves. And of course, that's, of course, why I'm warm to Angela Rayner, because she's prepared to take more hectic directions. Yeah. I was very interested that she talked about, she made a point of reminding me that Sure Start was not, as it were, a pledge. That it was, it followed. and I wonder, it made me think, oh, I wonder if she's got a few things up her sleeve.

54:49Could they not? Maybe this doesn't make any sense. Would they get in trouble for this? But I would have thought there could be some things that you could say when the fiscal situation allows. We will look very seriously at reintroducing some bits of Sure Start. So you could signal to people. Well, they've done that on defence, haven't they? They've done it on defence spending. I think something like Sure Start, you probably have to do it or you don't. But if their basic argument is we can't do it because we're bust, yeah be nice to see them say if we were less bust in this particular economic conditions she did say that she and she's right about this you can't just reinvent what you did then and bring it in but i think the whole issue of trying to address child poverty i'd be interested to know what teachers and we have a lot of teachers and head teachers who listen to this podcast you know i'd love to know what they thought because it isn't education education education in the way that david blanket don't know it is very much child care child poverty they're the fundamentals And I think it would have been a different interview with David Blunkett or indeed Michael Gove.

55:43I think if Gove had been doing that interview, thinking back to the interviews he gave in the run up to 2010, you would have found 60, 70 percent of it was him talking about all these different changes he wanted to make the curriculum and how he wanted to reorganize schools and teachers. That, again, isn't quite how it's being played. It's being played in terms of social justice, but it's not quite the kind of nerdy, let me get my hands on a school, this is the headteacher I talk to, this is where we want to go. Good. Well, I'll see you again soon. Thank you, Alistair, and that was really worthwhile.

56:13Thank you.