Robert Halfon’s quaint notion that vocational training should pass the “dinner-party test” is an indicator of how shallow his supposed blue-collar Conservatism is (‘The Tory party should change its name to the Workers’ party. I am 100% serious’, 17 April). How many people bringing children up in poverty are going to dinner parties where they would be looked down on because their child is an apprentice? His concern seems to lie with middle-class children in degree apprenticeships for lucrative, skilled jobs such as coding. The concerns of working-class parents and students are far more pragmatic, and many of them arise from the past eight years of Tory government: reduced access to free school meals, dwindling school budgets, the discriminatory and repressive use of Prevent in education, and higher tuition fees.
Nor do working-class students want access to university education only on the proviso that they study highly employable subjects like engineering, while their middle-class peers can afford to study medieval history. Subjects like classics and ancient history might be seen as a luxury by some, but it has served Mr Halfon’s colleagues Michael Fallon and Boris Johnson well in their careers. A society serious about democratic representation and equality of opportunity must offer working-class students the option of pursuing the same path to government.
Robert Halfon may be right that the Conservative party would be better represented by a “ladder” – the one that they have been pulling up after them since Thatcher.
And finally, lifted from the text to the headline, like a jewel gifted from the gods of comedy, is the laughable, suggestion that the Tories should rebrand themselves “The Workers’ party”. Pure Orwell.
Laura McAlpine
Labour PPC for Harlow and the Villages
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/19/robert-halfons-views-on-education-cause-concern
