Sarah Teather and Free Schools

The Guardian reported on Sarah Teather being given a hard time over free schools at the Liberal Democrat Party Conference early on, and now the Liberal Democrat leadership have been explicitly defeated on the issue. Given the way Sarah Teather is now implementing a policy that she spent the election campaign denouncing, that is hardly surprising. I think it is more or less admitted that the Coalition government is going to pay no attention to what the Liberal Democrat Conference says.

As I see it Sarah Teather's central weakness is that the Tories are determined to push ahead with the free schools policy. The Liberal Democrats can only rebel against such a central policy if they are willing to break up the coalition, which would mean they no longer hold ministerial posts. Of course, had the Liberal Democrats agreed to support a minority Conservative government, they would still be able to oppose the free schools initiative.

I have seen comments from Simon Hughes suggesting that he does oppose Free Schools, even though he voted for them in the Commons as they were part of the coalition deal. I think that position would only seem remotely credible to someone of Mr Hughes' extraordinary level of moral manoeuvrability.

Meanwhile, Teather is stuck in an entirely subordinate position to Michael Gove, implementing a policy that she and her colleagues disagree with. In my imagination, he calls her Teather and she calls him Mr Gove. That is the kind of relationship they have.