Can the Tories turn education from a strength into a weakness for Sir Keir Starmer? (Image: Getty)
Sir Keir Starmer will vandalise your local school and wreck your children’s education.
That is the message Kemi Badenoch wants to land in the minds of Britain’s parents.
You could hear the anger in the Prime Minister’s voice as the Tory leader accused him of the “worst of socialism” and vandalising education.
The Conservative leader wants to brand Labour as a threat to children’s life chances. She is proud of the ’ record on education in England and knows few issues matter more to parents than the quality of their son or daughter’s school.
Mrs Badenoch went on the attack in Prime Minister’s Questions, accusing the Government of caving in to the teaching unions and stopping doctors, military veterans and Olympic medallists from taking their expertise into the classroom.
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Sir Keir may well have turned up in the Commons expecting to answer questions on the killings in Southport, the Government’s response to the grooming gang scandal, or how he will forge links with the Trump administration.
Instead, he found himself under sustained attack over his education programme.
It was a maverick move by Mrs Badenoch, but she believes Labour is vulnerable on this crucial issue.
The international education league table run by the OECD routinely shows Wales, where Labour has been in charge of schools since 1999, lagging far behind England.
Mrs Badenoch cast herself as a defender of deprived children who will “pay the price” if Labour puts Conservative reforms in England into reverse.
“Poor children in England now do better than wealthier children in Wales,” Mrs Badenoch declared. “This Bill denies children the guarantee that their failing school will be turned into a better academy.
“It is an attack on excellence, it is an attack on higher standards, it is an attack on aspiration. This Bill is the worst of socialism.”
Anger crept into Sir ’s voice when she accused him of taxing the education of children with special needs.
“She’s got a nerve,” he said.
If voters think of the as the nation’s foremost champions of excellence in education by the time of the next election, Mrs Badenoch will have scored a major victory.
It was Tony Blair in 1996 who told his party conference: “Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education and education.”
This is comfortable territory for Mrs Badenoch, who casts herself as a parent who understands the stresses felt by families throughout Britain.
“I know what it’s like to go to a school which didn’t care about standards,” she told the Commons. “This is a tragedy in the making.”
By accusing Labour of not including the “key changes” in the manifesto, she triggers memories of other unpleasant surprises in the party’s first six months in government – such as the scrapping of winter fuel payments.
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The Prime Minister does not hide his exasperation when he looks across the Despatch Box at his Tory challenger.
He no longer comes across as a barrister trying to argue a technical point of law. He looks like a man utterly irritated by these weekly sessions with the woman who wants his job.
He insisted his Government is delivering vital reforms to protect children, saying: “We had a young child killed who was taken out of a school by an abuser … We have children who have not gone back to school since .
“This Bill closes that gap.”
If the are the preferred choice of parents at the next election, then Sir Keir’s landslide majority could evaporate. The fight for their hearts and minds is just beginning.