Labour wanted the Services involved in schools in 2012 and I wasn't worried then either

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When I heard that Gavin "Stupid Boy" Williamson had proposed giving the military a role in some schools, the idea seemed familiar.

Sure enough, a search of this blog reveals that the idea was proposed by two Labour shadow cabinet members, Stephen Twigg and Jim Murphy, back in 2012.

The same people who were outraged at the idea of teenagers having Saturday jobs a few days ago were also outraged by Williamson.

But as I wrote in 2012:

There are many children who will hate the idea (I would have been one) but there are others who would jump at the idea of "specialist Service Schools," so why shouldn’t they be able to attend them?

One of the problems with the left in education is their assumption that there is an objectively best system that must be imposed everywhere all at once. The truth is more complicated than that.

And it is hard to resist the thought that an early encounter with the military would have done Williamson good.