The New Statesman@NewStatesman
CLASS WARRIOR by Pippa Bailey
Is Bridget Phillipson really the most dangerous education secretary ever?
Bridget Phillipson has certainly faced her critics since she entered the Department for Education in July 2024. She was likened to a Nazi for Labour’s promise to remove the VAT exemption on private-school fees. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill saw her derided as a “Marxist”. Her changes have been interpreted as an attack on Michael Gove’s legacy. For them, Phillipson has been labelled an enemy of progress who wants to cut down the tall poppies rather than help them grow. The Mail considers her “the most dangerous education secretary in living memory”.
Phillipson and Keir Starmer are close allies. On 9 February, as pressure mounted on the Prime Minister to resign over the appointment of Peter Mandelson, Phillipson volunteered to support him on the media round. (She was “extremely keen” to do so, a Labour figure says.)
Now, Phillipson faces two even more toxic challenges, the outcome of which will make or break her career, and perhaps the government itself. First, the long-awaited schools white paper is expected in the coming days. Its most difficult proposals involve reforms to special educational needs (Send) provision. Months of painstaking work have gone into building support among Labour MPs in hopes of avoiding a Welfare Bill-style rebellion that could threaten the Prime Minister’s fragile grip on power.
Second, as Women and Equalities Minister, Phillipson is responsible for delivering guidance on how organisations implement the Supreme Court’s ruling that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, a woman is defined by biological sex. Businesses and services are still operating under a code of practice last updated in 2011. Pressure is mounting on Phillipson to deliver its replacement – and fast.
Labour is on the brink. If Phillipson can steer through Send reform and the trans guidance, she could restore a sense of strength and confidence about this government – and perhaps even give it a sense of purpose. If she cannot, she risks becoming an emblem for a government that has neither a coherent vision nor the ability to communicate it; at once loathed and without the radicalism to justify such loathing. On Send reform in particular, the timing is crucial: Labour’s performance in the local elections in May could end Starmer’s premiership.
But who is the woman at the heart of these challenges – and what does she want? Is she a radical reformer, intent on ripping up the legacy of the Gove era to set a path of her own? Or is she a more conservative figure, seeking sensible tweaks to the system she inherited? Does she – and the government more widely – know which she wants to be? Most importantly, perhaps, can she grip the challenges ahead with enough strength to save Keir Starmer’s faltering government, before time and the last vestiges of goodwill run out?
(Cover photo by Kate Peters for the New Statesman)
