8 December

Everything Elizabeth says is (scandalously) true. And similar arguments apply to private hospitals and private health (who also use the same lying excuses, such as ‘it takes the strain off the public system’). I wouldn’t get rid of them though. I would make all schools and healthcare driven by evidence-based outcomes. That would include evidence on cost, or value for money. If you want to set up a school or a hospital, you have to demonstrate that you’re actually teaching or healing, across agreed measures. The sad reality is that neither the public OR the private system, in either education or health, would pass that sort of test right now. There are no agreed measures, just measures on one side that favour teachers and doctors, and measures on the other that are brutal, simple cost-saving measures. And schools overwhelmingly across both sectors that add nothing to student learning, and healthcare that adds nothing to health.