Tag Archives: building schools for the future

Mark Valladares

29 June 2020 – the overnight press release

By Mark Valladares | Mon 29th June 2020 - 7:30 am

Govt funding for schools is spin over substance

Responding to the Government’s announcement of a ten-year rebuilding programme schools, Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Layla Moran said:

This is spin over substance. The funding is nowhere near the £7bn the National Audit Office has said is needed to repair our schools.

Schools need urgent investment to increase space now, not vague numbers pulled out of thin air.

Whether it’s investing in schools or hospitals, time and again the Conservatives have over promised and under delivered.

Posted in News | Also tagged | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

5 points on Clegg’s admission that Coalition was wrong to cut capital spending

By Stephen Tall | Fri 25th January 2013 - 8:40 am

Nick Clegg in DublinNick Clegg has sparked a flurry of excitement with his admission in an interview for The House magazine that the Coalition cut capital spending ‘too far, too fast’ to coin a phrase. Here’s what he said to Paul Waugh and Sam Macrory:

“If I’m going to be sort of self-critical, there was this reduction in capital spending when we came into the Coalition Government. I think we comforted ourselves at the time that it was actually no more than what Alistair Darling spelt out

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Ed Fordham

Opinion: BSF is dead – thank goodness‏

By Ed Fordham | Thu 16th September 2010 - 10:30 am

With the Conference season now upon us and with Labour preparing to crown their new Leader it seems appropriate that we lay to rest the myth that BSF (Building Schools for the Future) was some great effective scheme. In fact it was a bureaucratic joke with too few beneficiaries and huge expensive processes. The Liberal Democrat Conference is a good chance to cheer and toast the end of BSF and focus on education and pupils and real improvements.

It was 2005 and the local elections in London were scheduled for 2006. It was clear, we were clear, parents were clear, that there was a need for additional secondary school places in north west London in the Borough of Camden. The case for more places in the south of the Borough was also compelling – the campaign for a school ‘south of the Euston Road’ was pretty noisy and indeed compelling. And yet Camden Council had got itself to a place whereby it looked inactive, unable to articulate a more pro-active vision and lacking the political leadership to secure a new school.

I remember very clearly the conversation in Cllr Keith Moffitt’s front room in West Hampstead about the need for a new school.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 6 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • Chris Cory
    While I agree with every word, I am at the same time, more than a little discombobulated. If we believe all this fine "power to the people" stuff, then isn't...
  • Ian
    The way the party runs itself is hardly an exemplar for putting our values into practice, is it? Nor evidence that senior people in the party have much interes...
  • David Allen
    British politics since the 2008 crash has been a contest between establishment Governments and insurgent opponents. The Tory and Labour establishment parties h...
  • Kevin Hawkins
    I have frequently commented on Lib Dem Voice that we should not take one week’s by-election results (or even several week’s results) seriously. We have goo...
  • Dan Falchikov
    Well said: "David Howarth’s Being Liberal explores the Liberal disposition: open-minded, suspicious of abuses of power, uncomfortable with hierarchy, treatin...