Is Cameron confused or just really stupid? Or both?

Timmy has done a nice little breakdown of Cameron's latest nonsensical Telegraph article, but your humble Devil thought that he might also address it, if only because it illustrates one of the things that most irritates me about young Spam-Cam, i.e. he hasn't got a fucking clue about working policy.

The biggest challenge facing Britain today is mending our broken society.

Yeah, you keep on wheeling that catch-phrase out, Cammy; but are you sure you shouldn't be writing for The Daily Hate-Mail?

That will not happen overnight: long-term social change needs long-term thinking.

That, and a severe lack of political interference. Oh, yes; and courage. It requires the courage to let people manage their own lives and take the politics out of the essentials. Will you do that?

And the Conservatives are the only party doing it.

Don't make me fucking laugh.

We are showing how we will do more to support families, because responsible parents give children the secure and loving start they need. Last week, we laid out our plans to tackle Britain's crime crisis, through reforming our police, tougher sentencing and increasing prison places.

Yes, fair enough.

But a long-term plan for tackling social breakdown has to include fixing our education system.

You are quite correct. You're doing very well, so far.

Take any marker of our broken society, and educational failure lies at its root. Four in every five youngsters receiving custodial sentences have no qualifications. More than two-thirds of prisoners are illiterate. And nearly one-third of those excluded from school have been involved with substance abuse.

Yes, education gives hope and it allows people to use their potential. So, come on, what the fuck are you going to do about it.

The evidence is clear: if we do not get education right, we will not get our society right.

Um, whose society are we talking about here? And whose "right" are we talking about? My society might look, I suspect, considerably different to yours, Cammy-Baby. When will you politicos stop banging on about how you are going to sort out society?

The best thing that you could do is to fuck off out of it and leave us alone to build the society that each individual wishes to have. It is the politicians who "broke" society in the first place: why on earth do you think that you can fix it?

So what is happening under Labour? Forty-three per cent of 11-year-olds cannot read, write and add up properly. Last month, more than 20,000 pupils left school without a GCSE. And right now, more than a million young people are not in education, work or training. Labour has not just presided over educational failure, it has also overseen glaring inequality. At the age of seven, children on free school meals are 19 per cent less likely to do as well in core subjects as those who don't get free meals. By GCSEs, this gap rises to 28 per cent.

Yes, yes; this is still exposition: what are you going to do?

Should we accept this? Absolutely not.

Quite right. Is there a decent model that we could follow? Yes, there is...

Take Sweden. There, standards have been raised by allowing innovative organisations to set up new schools in the state sector, championing excellence and giving parents more control and choice.

Yes, Sweden has a pure voucher system: the money follows the child. Any two teachers can set up a school and try to attract the money by producing a good school and attracting customers.

And the policy has been wildly successful, as this Economist article points out.

The strongest evidence against this criticism comes from Sweden, where parents are freer than those in almost any other country to spend as they wish the money the government allocates to educating their children. Sweeping education reforms in 1992 not only relaxed enrolment rules in the state sector, allowing students to attend schools outside their own municipality, but also let them take their state funding to private schools, including religious ones and those operating for profit. The only real restrictions imposed on private schools were that they must run their admissions on a first-come-first-served basis and promise not to charge top-up fees (most American voucher schemes impose similar conditions).

The result has been burgeoning variety and a breakneck expansion of the private sector. At the time of the reforms only around 1% of Swedish students were educated privately; now 10% are, and growth in private schooling continues unabated.

Anders Hultin of Kunskapsskolan, a chain of 26 Swedish schools founded by a venture capitalist in 1999 and now running at a profit, says its schools only rarely have to invoke the first-come-first-served rule—the chain has responded to demand by expanding so fast that parents keen to send their children to its schools usually get a place. So the private sector, by increasing the total number of places available, can ease the mad scramble for the best schools in the state sector (bureaucrats, by contrast, dislike paying for extra places in popular schools if there are vacancies in bad ones).

More evidence that choice can raise standards for all comes from Caroline Hoxby, an economist at Harvard University, who has shown that when American public schools must compete for their students with schools that accept vouchers, their performance improves. Swedish researchers say the same. It seems that those who work in state schools are just like everybody else: they do better when confronted by a bit of competition.

Good schools will attract pupils and money, and bad schools will go bust; but actually, what happens mainly is that the bad schools improve when in competition rather than go bust.

And whatever happens, the children leave school actually having learned something and possessed of at least the most basic skills that will allow them to get a job and, thus, have a future. This is something that the monolithic, state-controlled British system is utterly failing to do.

Compare this to Labour's methods: obsessive micro-management and rigid attachment to old-fashioned ideas has entrenched deprivation, shut doors and closed minds.

Very true. Oh, and don't forget the shit calibre and left-wing obsession of teachers too; they have absolutely not helped.

However, do remember what Cameron has just said: that "micro-management" is bad.

We need a new approach: one that offers real hope and opportunity; harnesses aspiration and opens minds; and gives children from poor backgrounds the chance to get on in life.

Yes, and we have a blueprint for that approach: the Swedish model. It is proven and it works. So, do you have the balls to introduce it and, most importantly, remove schooling from state control?

Right now, it is the Conservatives that are offering that approach.

Really? I am cautiously optimistic...

This week, Baroness Perry and Stephen Dorrell will present the conclusions of our Public Services Improvement Policy Group. They will set out the four key priorities that will transform our schools so that they provide opportunities for all.

Right. So...

First, discipline. Without ordered environments and clear boundaries, children will not be able to learn. So when I say we need zero tolerance of disruptive pupils, I mean it. We will ensure that head teachers have the final say when it comes to excluding disruptive children. And we will allow schools to draw up binding home-school contracts, where failure to sign will mean no admission, and failure to adhere to the rules could mean exclusion.

Um, OK. Discipline is definitely needed, that is true.

Vitally, we will also put an immediate stop to the closure of special schools. The Government wants "inclusion for all". But putting children with severe behavioural problems in mainstream classes isn't inclusion; it is damaging and disruptive. Let's stop pretending all children are the same and recognise that they all have different needs. It is time to stop the closure of special schools and give every child tailored attention.

Um, I thought that you didn't want micro-management, Dave? Are you going to cut loose all schools except the ones that you won't? Erm...

Second, rigour in standards. This Government is failing the next generation by not providing them with the skills to succeed. We need to focus on the qualifications employers really value. Take GCSEs. When you include the core subjects of English, Maths, Science and a Modern Language, fewer children today are getting five A*-C passes than in 1997. We will make sure that children are taught using the right methods, so they get the basics in place from the start, develop a passion for learning and are able to grapple with tougher subjects.

That is why we campaigned so hard for the re-introduction of synthetic phonics as the best way of teaching reading.

What the fuck are you talking about? This is just getting sillier. Look, you baldy fuck, you have just told us that micro-management is bad but so far you have said that you want to keep control of schools and, unbelievably, that you want to control the way in which they teach.

If that isn't micromanagement, you stupid cunt, then what is? Next!

And to ensure we stretch the brightest pupils and support those who need extra help, we want to see teaching by ability in every school.

Yes, quite right! As I have always maintained, it is not class sizes that are important; it is the spread of ability. So, streaming within schools and within individual subjects is an excellent idea.

We will also look carefully at our policy group's idea of giving pupils who are falling behind at the age of 11 the chance to catch up and reach the right standard in the basics. This could be either during the summer before secondary school, or even in a repeat of the final primary school year.

And yet, here we are again. How about leaving it to schools to decide how they tackle this issue individually? And how about you leave it to the schools to find the most suitable solution for each child?

The third priority is giving greater independence to our teachers. Under Labour, they have become glorified form-fillers. There are now more external targets and criteria set for schools from Whitehall than days in the school year. The result? Ninety-three per cent of teachers say paperwork is distracting them from their job, and increasing numbers are retiring early. This must change. We need a bonfire of controls, so teachers are free to fulfil their vocation.

Yes, and the way to do this is to let education go. In the name of fuck, you have the Swedish blueprint: fucking well use it, you stupid bastard.

The fourth priority is increasing parental control and choice. This means having a genuine schools revolution. Parents, communities and social enterprises should be allowed to go into deprived areas that need great schools, set one up and receive funding for every pupil they attract. With the freedom to do things differently, their success would inspire others to follow.

Yes, absolutely; but why should this only happen in deprived areas? The whole point is that it happens everywhere, not just in certain areas. Apart from anything else, it will be the state which decides just what a deprived area is.

How many times much I say this, you idiot: get the state out of schooling.

It also means placing rocket-boosters under the city academy programme. Under Gordon Brown, the only exciting thing to happen to our schooling system in recent years faces abortion before proper lift-off. Already, he has tied academies closer to the national curriculum and given local education authorities greater sway over their affairs. By contrast, we will give academies more freedom to improve.

Yes, OK, fine. Get the state out of schooling.

Giving parents more control and choice also means helping poor kids get a place in a good school, regardless of whether it is outside their neighbourhood. That is why we will look closely at our policy group's idea for an advantage premium, where pupils from poorer backgrounds receive more funding, giving schools more incentive to teach them.

What the living fuck are you talking about, you stupid cunt? Are you completely fucking dense? Why on earth should children from "deprived areas" get more funding than any other child? And, once again, it will be government officials who decide who is "deprived" and who is not; which means even more form-filling for parents, and schools.

I know what parents want for their children because it is what I want for mine: schools with a disciplined learning environment, focus on getting the basics right, tailored teaching according to each child's ability, and emphasis on rigorous standards. I wouldn't, and we shouldn't, expect anything less.

Fucking hellski.

Yes, Dave, you are quite correct in all of that but as usual you are totally unable to understand what makes these systems work. For fuck's sake, get the state out of schooling!

Abolish the hugely wasteful LEAs, pen-pushing institutions which gobble up huge amounts of money—money that should be going to the schools—and produce precisely fuck-all of any use (apart from keeping large numbers of extraordinarily lazy people in work).

Issue school vouchers to children so that they and their parents can make the choice of school for themselves. If a school is failing to educate the child properly, then the child can move to a better one. This sustains competition between schools which, as we have seen, raises the quality of almost all establishments.

Privatise all schools and colleges, and allow any two teachers to start one. Do not interfere in teaching methods and do not interfere in disciplinary procedures. Just measure the results at the end: ensure that schools publish their results and allow the parents to choose where to send their children.

Half of the problem with our "broken society" is that people do not feel that they have enough choice. And remove choice and consequence from people and you infantilise them: this is the legacy of 60 years of the Welfare State. If you start to give people a choice in their future and the future of their children—which is pretty much what education is: their future—then you will be a good way along the road to fixing the problems that we have.

In the name of fuck, Dave, you have a working system in front of you. You have cited the Swedish model and yet you seem determined to subvert the system because you do not seem to understand why it works.

OK, that's fine: you are too stupid to understand. In that case, don't try to understand it: just accept that it does work and implement the fucking system!

And, in the name of all that's unholy, get the state out of education.