As Conservative MPs fight like rats in a sack, school children miss out - Andrew Vine

Over the course of 40 years in the classroom, she has seen children failing to do as well as they should, despite her best efforts and those of her colleagues.

Poverty putting families under so much financial pressure that they cannot give children a good start in life is partly to blame. A lack of money for schools in the north has also been a crucial factor for years.

The result can be young lives blighted and ambitions thwarted as even bright kids do not achieve all they could. Long before adulthood, factors over which they have no control are denying them the futures they deserve.

This isn’t only sad, it’s scandalous. Schools and their staff cannot fix this problem, however hard they try.

Children who are falling so far short, their families and their communities need a better chance in life – or to use the Government’s term, “levelling up”.

Only a step-change in all their fortunes – and the proper funding of education – is going to put an end to under-achievement by children who are leaving primaries with lower levels of attainment in literacy and numeracy than they should have.

Last week’s White Paper on levelling up was a step in the right direction, for all the criticism it attracted. The Minister responsible, Michael Gove, had much to say that was sensible, and I didn’t doubt his sincerity in wanting to give left- behind areas – of which Yorkshire has so many – a fairer deal.

But the chances of his being able to deliver even a start on this grow ever more remote with every day that Downing Street resembles a circus more than the heart of Government that drives policy.

The Government is effectively paralysed by the tumult surrounding Boris Johnson, the endless uncertainty over whether he will be toppled by Conservative MPs, and the ever-unfolding scandals associated with his leadership. The will-they-won’t-they drama over whether the Prime Minister faces a vote of no confidence is all-consuming, and the business of actually running the country has become a secondary issue.

Ministers face a single question, irrespective of their brief: do they back Mr Johnson?

Those that bluster about the whole thing being a media obsession only seek to distract attention from the real issues. The crisis at the heart of Government is not of the media’s making. It is the fault of Mr Johnson, who has become a block to his Ministers working effectively.

And there is seemingly no end in sight to it. If there is a confidence vote and Mr Johnson wins, he will forever be a lame duck Prime Minister fighting a constant rearguard action against dissenters who still want him out.

If he loses, there will be rancour amongst his supporters and a protracted battle over who becomes his successor.

Either way, the country suffers. The turmoil surrounding Mr Johnson will not be quelled by the appointment of new advisers.

Whatever support they give him, he could yet be swept from office by the police investigation into lockdown parties, or the full report into Downing Street shenanigans by civil servant Sue Gray. Even Mr Johnson’s wife has now been dragged into the psychodrama, with a new book containing allegations about her influence on how the Government is run, which she refutes.

The next few weeks or months could well rival all the angst over Brexit in presenting the grisly spectacle of a governing party tearing itself apart, with the welfare of the country relegated to an afterthought. The result is a sense of drift whilst serious issues go unaddressed. A Government lacking credibility because of its civil war cannot hope to exert any real influence over the threat of Russia invading Ukraine.

Little is being done to address an unfolding crisis in Northern Ireland, and despite Rishi Sunak’s intervention on spiralling energy costs, the coming weeks are likely to see families plunged into real difficulties over their gas and electricity bills. And that will place even more pressure on the Yorkshire homes of children who are not doing well at school, aggravating the problems that are already holding them back.

As Conservative MPs fight like rats in a sack, and the target of their fury or fervent support contemplates how best to keep his job, nothing is going to be done to give these children the chances in life that they deserve.

Mr Johnson built part of his electoral appeal here in the north on his pledge to level up the economy. It’s bitterly ironic for the people who desperately need a new start that he has become the Premier least likely to deliver it.