• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / News Archive / ELECTION 2010: Cameron confrontation ‘exposes contradictions’

ELECTION 2010: Cameron confrontation ‘exposes contradictions’

By guest on 1st April 2010 Category: News Archive

Listen

Campaigners say an election campaign confrontation between David Cameron and the parent of a disabled child has exposed contradictions in the Conservative manifesto.

They were speaking after Cameron was questioned in front of a mass of media about his policies on inclusive education by Jonathan Bartley, from south London.

Bartley asked Cameron why his manifesto had pledged to “end the bias towards the inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream schools”.

Bartley said there was currently a bias “against” the inclusion of disabled children in mainstream schools and told him of the two-year struggle to secure a mainstream place for his son Samuel.

Cameron told Bartley that he had personally written the part of the manifesto about inclusive education – which also pledges a “moratorium on the ideologically-driven closure of special schools” – but said he would “never do anything to make it more difficult for children to go to a mainstream school”.

When Bartley accused him of wanting to segregate disabled children, Cameron said: “I don’t. I absolutely don’t. I really don’t.”

It is not the first time the Conservatives have faced embarrassment over their inclusion policy on the campaign trail.

Last week, a disabled Conservative parliamentary candidate had to defend the policy, despite admitting that his own education was probably damaged by attending a special school.

Simone Aspis, campaigns and policy co-ordinator for the Alliance for Inclusive Education, said that parents who choose special schools do so because their children have not been given the support they need to succeed in a mainstream school.

She welcomed the profile given to the issue during the election campaign, and said there had been a lot of anger and shock among inclusion campaigners at what the Conservatives say about inclusive education in their manifesto.

Aspis said: “It doesn’t fit with any of their policies around having a fairer society.

“The fact that Cameron wrote this [part of the] manifesto from a personal perspective as opposed to Conservative policy questions its basis.”

Conservative candidates that she and her colleagues meet on the streets say they are in favour of including disabled children in mainstream education, she added.

Aspis said: “[Bartley] made some very valid points, particularly around the difficulties he faces and many other parents face in being able to get the support that they need to participate in mainstream schooling.”

Writing in the Guardian, Bartley said that inclusion “takes commitment and a lot of work”, which “has actually been lacking in the education system, despite all the talk of inclusion from Labour”.

He said the problem had been that mainstream schools “have not been equipped well enough to be able to show parents and others that they work for children with special educational needs”, and that the move towards inclusion had been “half-hearted”.

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat education spokesman, said it was clear that “some parents are concerned that under the Tories we could lurch back to a policy of only having youngsters in special schools”.

28 April 2010

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Related

‘Muddled’ blue badge reforms ‘are to blame for renewal delays’
6th February 2015
UN debate will be reminder of true inclusive education
6th February 2015
IDS breaks pledge on PIP waiting-times, as tens of thousands still queue for months
30th January 2015

Primary Sidebar

Image shows a man wearing glasses sitting by an open laptop The text reads: Free Career Support for Disabled People Our services include: 1-2-1 Coaching Online Career Resources Find Support near you Search for Inclusive Jobs Career Events and Workshops Visit the Evenbreak Career Hive today to find out how we can help you

Access

Latest Stories

Fears over impact of DWP’s ‘horrific’ and ‘sinister’ anti-fraud plan

Ministerial duo dismiss concerns over social care funding crisis

Company linked to death of PIP claimant gives itself ‘seven or eight out of 10’

Public order bill will criminalise disabled protesters, says MP

Disabled woman pays hundreds in fines, after council refuses reasonable adjustments

Councils frequently fail to make reasonable adjustments, says ombudsman

Campaigners celebrate their Crossrail access win as line finally opens, eight years on

Grenfell: Call for action over government’s ‘deplorable’ decision on evacuation plans

‘Severely neglected’ man found dead, three months after DWP assessment

Government brands DNS ‘vexatious’ for trying to obtain info on 90 DWP deaths

Advice and Information

The Department for Work and Pensions: Deaths, cover-up, and a toxic 30-year legacy

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2022 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web