This is no phoney war, we must fight for fairer funding

At times, it may be tempting to think we are in a phoney war over education funding. We say there isn’t enough money, the government says there is. But behind the scenes, most civil servants and politicians know there isn’t and that something will have to be done. They just don’t know what that something is, or how the Treasury, and a new Prime Minister who is said to be keen on the idea of a small state, will respond.

Eventually, though, sanity must prevail. Surely. Because the alternative is a disaster. Deep cuts to provision and the risk of a decline in educational standards. Schools, particularly small primaries, which are simply no longer financially viable. 

Larger class sizes, cuts to subject options and pastoral support, school trips cancelled, extra-curricular programmes scrapped, and widespread job losses. No government would contemplate going into a General Election campaign while presiding over such a catastrophic state of affairs. Would they?