They hunt high and low for Labour’s missing message, vision, purpose or identity. Well, here it is, where it always was, in the future of children. It’s what Labour does best, what it is for: building a society where children come first and everything else falls into place. The foundations have now been laid by Bridget Phillipson by finally bringing back Sure Start to England – the most successful achievement of the last Labour government – now rebranded as Best Start family hubs.
It’s a pity about the new name, but young parents recognise “hubs”, whereas Sure Start is largely gone and forgotten. Its uprooting began the day Michael Gove arrived as education secretary in 2010. He entered the “Department for Children, Schools and Families” – a name chosen to reflect the awareness that children don’t learn without wraparound care for their whole lives – and replaced it with the Gradgrind “Department for Education”. Family stuff was flimflam, distracting from rote learning, and arts, music, drama and sports were expunged from his Ebacc’s core subjects.
