Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

Welcome to ‘Letters From A Tory’, covering British politics from a conservative perspective. Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts about today’s letter, and don’t forget that you can CLICK HERE to get my letters sent to you by RSS every morning.Dear Ed Balls,
Much as I’d like to send a congratulatory letter [...]

Dear Nick Clegg,
In the modern political era, it is almost a given that policy announcements and speeches are leaked to the media way so that some interest can be drummed up in advance.  It was therefore quite refreshing for you to spring a surprise attack on David Cameron this week, although – as we have [...]

Dear Alistair Campbell,
I know that officially you are not involved with the Labour Party, but seeing as just about every single broadsheet is discussing your return I have little doubt that you are part of the government’s spin machine yet again.  As far as spin goes, the class warfare initiated at Prime Minister’s Questions last [...]

From the Telegraph:
The everyday use of stickers by teachers to reward their pupils’ good behaviour is beginning to backfire, new research has revealed.
The “achievements” now deemed by schools to merit reward badges include good work, sitting quietly, finishing lunch and putting used tissues in the bin. Reward stickers are even recommended by the Department [...]

“I think it was a bit stupid of him to be caught out – he’s a teacher, after all, he should have known better.”
- Andy Hillell, now 18, who has admitted secretly filming his science teacher doing a chicken dance.  His teacher, Phil Ryan, put on the act to entertain Year 11 pupils at Broadgreen International School [...]

“No one ever seemed able to answer the simple question of what exactly Jennie had done wrong. We say there is an undercurrent of anti-Christian sentiment which she has come up against. If she had been from another religious background, nothing would have happened.”
- Sean Kehoe, senior partner of the law firm Advance Legal who [...]

From the Guardian:
Teen pregnancy and disease rates rose sharply during Bush years, agency finds

Teenage pregnancies and syphilis have risen sharply among a generation of American school girls who were urged to avoid sex before marriage under George Bush’s evangelically-driven education policy, according to a new report by the US’s major public health body.  In a [...]

“An unsavoury character could have come in and we just can’t put the children in the event or the students at the host school at risk like that.  The ultimate fear is that a child is hurt or abuducted, and we must take all measures possible to prevent that.”
- Paul Blunt, development manager at the [...]

From the BBC, over the last two days:

“Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne said there was the need for a “power shift” away from civil servants and towards the public. The Guardian reports that the shake-up in public services will include entitlements to personal tuition in schools, minimum GP waiting times and access to [...]

Dear Ed Balls,
With the likelihood of you stepping into Number 11 growing by the day (although not guaranteed just yet), many bloggers, journalists and voters are already shuddering with fear at the prospect of you being in charge of the purse strings.  As if your arrogance and incompetence were not reason enough to want you [...]

Dear Gordon Brown,
Wow, what a relief.  When there was talk over the weekend of you having run out of ideas, I was mildly concerned that you might actually have some decent policies up your sleeve, waiting to be rolled out at any moment. Today you will make a speech in London to try to silence your [...]

Dear Michael Gove,
As the Conservative Party have made their education reforms the focus of their manifesto for the next election, I can understand that it must be immensely frustrating to watch Ed Balls continue to dig our education system into an ever-deeper hole.  Today will see the launch of the new primary school curriculum that [...]

Dear Ed Balls,
For months now, you have refused to set schools free from state control, ensuring that local authorities maintain their grip on our education system and condemn it to many more years of failure and stagnation.  It is, therefore, ironic that when you finally announce some element of freedom for schools, it is the [...]

Dear Ed Balls,
There is something unbelievably cheeky about yesterday’s release of a government report by Sir Alan Steer into the appalling standards of behaviour in our schools, seeing as Labour have ignored the issue for a decade.  The number of children excluded more than 10 times in a single year went up from 310 in [...]

“We take no lessons in morality from Government ministers, who fit out their homes with stone sinks from Habitat on their expenses, who pay their husbands more than a teacher earns to be their personal assistants, and who don’t appear to engage in even a hint of performance management of what they get up to.”
- [...]

Dear Ed Balls,
As a die-hard socialist, there are few cabinet members who show such an overt love of centralisation and a desire to control everything and everyone.  Having been on the receiving end of complaints regarding the allegation that Twitter will form a greater part of the new primary school curriculum than History following an [...]

“They were completely inappropriate for somebody who is a teacher. They were absolutely not pornographic but do you want to see your teacher in that way?”
- Ben Slade, head teacher of Manor Community College in Cambridge, who clearly doesn’t understand hormonal teenagers very well as a PE teacher at his school faces disciplinary action after [...]

Dear Jim Knight,
Cynical or stupid – you’ve got to be one or the other (or both), but I just can’t decide.  Your response to yesterday’s depressing news that a quarter of 19-year-olds still do not reach the government’s minimum standard of five GCSEs and half do not reach the equivalent of two A-levels was just [...]

Dear Oona Stannard
As head of the Catholic Education Service in this country, you have probably been watching the increasingly fraught relationship between religion and public services with a keen interest.  Christianity has come in for some rough treatment over the past few weeks and months as Labour drive home their ‘Equality’ and ‘Diversity’ agendas.  Your fear that [...]

Dear Hazel Blears,
Seeing as you are the only Labour Cabinet member speaking openly about the threat of the BNP, I thought I would give you a short lesson this morning in one of the main reasons why the BNP are becoming a more formidable foe.  At the end of last year, you caused a stir [...]

Dear ‘Iftikhar’,
I don’t make a habit of writing letters to people who leave comments on my blog, but your comment yesterday in response to the news that a number of Muslim schools have been caught promoting fundamentalist beliefs were without doubt the most appalling remarks I have ever seen on this blog on any topic.  [...]

“The Holy Prophet stated the person who plays chess is like one who dips his hands in the blood of a swine (pig).”
- a message on a website linked to from a Muslim primary school recently.  A report by the think-tank Civitas found Islamic fundamentalism was being promoted on websites at some Muslim schools.  One site linked [...]

Dear Jennie Cain,
I was hoping that my letter to Julia Robinson, the headteacher who was sacked because Muslim parents took a disliking to her, was going to be the last of its kind for a while.  Last week, nurse Caroline Petrie was told she could go back to work having been suspended for two months [...]

Dear Julia Robinson,
Now that you have resigned as headteacher of Meersbrook Bank primary school in Sheffield, the details of your disgraceful treatment have begun to emerge.  A teacher at your school said that you had been under a lot of pressure, while a parent claimed that you were forced out along with the school’s chairman of governors.  You [...]

Dear David Cameron,
I’m delighted to see that someone in politics has realised that the economic crisis is not the only important issue facing this country over the next few years.  While Gordon Brown is being regularly humiliated by other heads of state, with Nicolas Sarkozy now joining the long line of foreign dignatories who have recently slated [...]