From strong and stable to weak and reckless

So we’re waking up to the dreaded prospect of the coalition of chaos that Theresa May warned us of – and she’s only got herself to blame.

And although many are celebrating her embarrassment I cannot see any joy in a country left with no decisive leadership.

At a time when we are facing the most momentous decisions of Brexit and our security is under threat from terrorism, we need the strong and stable government we were promised.

Whoever ends up taking on the mantle of prime minister will surely have a weaker hand to deal in trying to get their policies and Brexit wishes across the line.

And for me, this is a deeply sad day for education reform.

Getting education right is at the heart of making this country successful in a post-Brexit era.

At the moment we are languishing well behind other countries in education league tables.

Shamefully far too many of our children are leaving primary school barely grasping the basics in literacy and numeracy, and therefore not achieving the results needed at GCSE level.

We live in a country where everyone is encouraged to go to university whether they are academically able enough or not while equally important skills in technology go neglected.

And we live in a country where the gulf in attainment between the poor and the affluent grows all the time through selection by house price.

Theresa May’s vision of new grammar schools could have made a real difference to social mobility had new grammar schools been built in deprived areas.

A strong Conservative government could have continued the work on making the curriculum at primary level more robust and end the scandal of some children not being able to read and write sufficiently.

And the Conservatives were at last recognising that to create a strong economy we need to hold vocational courses in the same high esteem as academic courses.

But a weak and disastrous campaign from May has instead left the country – and the future of our children – in dangerous limbo.

Sadly, there are no winners in this election as a hung parliament now puts the country into a position where neither side can do very little.

And it was all so unnecessary. Theresa May had a working majority for another three years and now she’s blown it through her own recklessness.

The country is now facing a period of great uncertainty and the only way out I can see is another General Election in the near future.

While the politicians conduct behind the scenes wrangling, I will continue to campaign for radical education reform to stop the rot of 50 years of progressive education.