‘Turning the clock back’ : the revival of Thatcherism in the Conservative Party’s education policy (2005-2015)

In education as in other public services, continuities between New Labour and the Thatcher and Major administrations have often been underlined. Since 2005 the Conservatives have endeavoured to distance themselves from both their predecessors and to set out a new vision for education. This paper, which focuses on primary and secondary education, discusses and compares discourse and policy, and argues that the expected renewal has been superseded by a re-enactment of 1980s policies and a revival of Thatcher’s ideas and values. It identifies several economic and political factors accounting for the recent ’Thatcherite turn’ in education, which should also be considered in the wider historical context of the protracted development of state education in England in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Here, “New Conservatives” will refer to the Conservative-led Coalition Government