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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

I gave way to the hon. Gentleman once before, so I will carry on. I have been trying to work out why the education spokesperson has had such a raw deal. It could have been because of the critical comments he has made in the past about the shadow Business Secretary, although given that so many people on the Conservative Front Bench have done that, it would be unfair to single out the shadow Education Secretary. It may be because of what he wrote a few years ago in his column in The Times:""the Tories, fatally, foolishly, put all their eggs in the Belize basket. They secured the short-term comfort of Mr Ashcroft's tax-sheltered millions, but have paid the price in credibility forgone"—" wise words from the shadow Education Secretary, one would have to say. He went on to say—and this is the problem:""Mr Hague certainly has a well-developed sense of humour…You certainly do not emerge strengthened as an opponent of cronyism by expending what credibility you have acting as the paid lobbyist for your own title-hungry Treasurer."" That is what the hon. Member for Surrey Heath wrote a few years ago; perhaps that is why he has been singled out. On the other hand, there may be some hope. Lord Ashcroft has already sponsored an academy in Wandsworth, so perhaps he is going to pay for the free-market schools policy as well, although we can just imagine the curriculum—not so much financial education as tax avoidance education, not school trips but extended overseas trips, not book clubs but beach clubs, not the Swedish model but the Belize model, excellence for the few paid for by cuts—