What's the point of the Schools Minister?

[UnquietDad]

They put him up for answering people's concerns about admissions on the BBC website and he answers several carefully-chosen questions with New-Labour-bot-speak.

here

I don't really blame him, I suppose - he's got to give out the party line if he wants to keep his job - but people must have known this was going to happen.

The only useful parts are the reassurance that they don't intend to scrap the sibling rule and (I imagine) the clarification on SEN policy.

The really offensive bit is this:

"Thirty years ago there was no choice. Children simply went to their local schools and it was a real hit or miss affair whether they got a good education or not. I am not sure that many parents would want to go back to those days."

You mean it's not hit-and-miss now?? It's better now with "choice"?! Do me a favour!!

There were more grammar schools 30 years ago and many, many parents would like to go back to those days. (Though there were also, of course, some very second class secondary moderns too.)

Its a Q and A session, he wasn't going to suddenly announce a massive u-turn in goverment policy because of one clerverly worded question.

I would ask what the point of an online Q and A session is. Questionners can't come back with follow-ups and answers can all be rehearsed. Much better to do a broadcast interview when the interviewer can pin the Minister down on inconsistencies. Even then you won't get a change in policy. Our system of government relies on collective decision making. Any policy change would require the relevant Secretary of State (not junoir Mininster like Jim Knight) to make the case to Cabinet.

It does seem a pointless way of doing it, because all the answers sound as if they were carefully written with the aid of a researcher.