Nick Clegg on selling the pupil premium

Last year I linked to Learning from Europe, the pamphlet Nick Clegg wrote on his pupil premium scheme with Richard Grayson. This policy idea was at the centre of Nick's campaign - if you were being unkind, you would say it was the only policy idea in his campaign.

In that posting I praised Nick for his innovative thinking but commented that "Learning From Europe does not address the question of how you would sell the pupil premium to parents whose children would not benefit from it."

During last week's Liberal Democrat Conference Nick gave an interview to the Guardian on his ideas for the public services:

A special £2bn fund to target spending on the most disadvantaged children in schools through a pupil premium will be hard to sell to the middle classes, Clegg admits. But he says it is the best way of ensuring their support for state schools by improving the performance of disadvantaged children in early education, allowing brighter children to be stretched.

I am not sure I quite follow the logic, but at least he is aware that there is a problem to be done in winning support for this policy among the middle classes.