The Conservative effect is notable in education, with several reforms at the department, beginning with the most (and only) successful Education Secretary Michael Gove and continuing throughout the ten Education Secretaries over the remaining ten years. The rapid churn made for inconsistent policymaking, and a lack of long-term planning. It ends with the Conservatives’ role in guiding the education system through Covid, and the return to ambitious plans under the final PM, Rishi Sunak. The chapter will also scrutinise Conservative higher education and university policy, and whether there was an opportunity wasted with universities.

The myth that most students can't write begins with the very first college writing exams, then really emerges when headline news begin reporting standardized test results. Consequences include that test results define writing and writing failure, and we accept test-based claims and criteria. We make limited standards the same thing as excellent standards, and we think about writing in terms of control rather than practice. Closer to the truth is that early exam reports sometimes lied, errors are changing but not increasing, and tests and scoring criteria change. Standardized exam writing is limited, but most students write across a broad writing continuum when they are not writing standardized exams.