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.

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 Jim Knight,
Today provides yet another perfect example of the horribly disjointed thinking from the government as you continue to push A-levels down a slippery slope.  As the results are released today for 300,000 A-level students, the predictions are that the number of A-grades awarded will rise for the 17th year in a row and [...]

Dear Jim Knight,
Like every other Labour minister, you clearly enjoy some time away from the limelight when things go horribly wrong, and what better example to illustrate this than your disappearing act on the day that SATs results are published for 600,000 11-year-olds.  Every broadsheet has covered the story of how headteachers and teachers are [...]

“Obviously it’s embarrassing when we are tripping over our own rules.  It doesn’t help the Government, it doesn’t help politics as a whole, when we see examples of us setting up rules and failing to abide by them.”
- Jim Knight, the schools minister, talking about Peter Hain

Dear Jim Knight,
Very clever indeed.  Most impartial observers might think nothing of it, but the fact that UCAS made a key announcement about the new school diplomas about an hour before the Lib Dem leadership announcement was as deliberate and cynical as it gets – a good day to bury disgraceful news.
So let’s cut to [...]