CLEARER VIEW FROM ACROSS THE POND :

Power to the poor people? (Stephen Pollard, 15th July 2002, New Statesman)

It may be a cliche to point out that what happens in the US happens here about five years later, but, like most cliches, it's true. Education vouchers, for instance, which give parents a sum equivalent to the money spent on sending their child to a state-run school, are usually dismissed in Britain. They have had a very different history in the US and, thanks to a decision a fortnight ago by the Supreme Court, are now poised to transform American schools. Give it a few years and the same may well happen here - not least because, although few have noticed, the government has already introduced the voucher principle into the NHS.

Although the American left, including the teachers' unions and the bulk of the Democratic Party, oppose school vouchers as firmly as their British equivalents, by far the most vocal advocates are the poverty lobby - and especially the black poverty lobby. The Joint Center for Economic and Political Studies, an African-American think-tank, found in a poll in December 2000 that 75 per cent of blacks under 35 support vouchers.

There's something delightful, though it will repel many Republicans, about the concept of our making common cause with the "poverty lobby". Posted by Orrin Judd at July 19, 2002 7:52 AM