Free our schools (and whelks)
Anyone who thinks Whitehall will be good at running schools should ponder its management of hospitals and prisons, the worst run institutions in Britain. They should also ponder Tomlinson. Its conclusions are an obituary on 18 years of the Department for Education trying to organise the curriculum and examinations. It has been a disaster.

An enduring fantasy of the British Establishment is that it can manage anything. Today’s message is don’t give it a whelk stall.

Simon Jenkins The Times 18 February 2004