Embarrassing about-face by her man nota good look for Foster’s DUP
IT’S been a frightful few weeks for the DUP at Stormont. After an unprecedented rebellion which saw only half of Arlene Foster’s MLAS support her over a controversial Bill, the last thing the party needed was another controversy.
Before Peter Weir’s embarrassing U-turn yesterday, every single party in the Assembly — from the left-wing People Before Profit to the staunchly conservative TUV — opposed the DUP on the AS and A-level results fiasco.
That’s not a position in which Mrs Foster’s party will be at all comfortable. To make matters worse, it was an entirely avoidable situation if a modicum of political sense had prevailed.
Once Scotland moved to accept teacher-assessed grades last week, the writing was on the wall for centralised standardisation. Stormont should have speedily followed suit. Instead, the Education Minister dragged his heels, and it wasn’t until London moved at 4pm yesterday that he did likewise.
Under intense questioning at committee last Friday he was not for turning and robustly defended using the controversial algorithm.
An opportunity for him to more discreetly go into reverse gear presented itself on Monday morning when he announced that teacher-assessed grades would be used for GCSES. But he stubbornly stuck to his guns on AS and A-levels until an afternoon climbdown.
Indeed, despite the U-turn he announced, the minister appears to genuinely believe that the algorithm was the correct way to proceed and that any errors would have been resolved on appeal.
Of the 28,000 students who received their results last week, almost 1,000 had lodged appeals. Being on the wrong side of such a significant number of young people and their families is dangerous territory for any party.
The minister may have had faith in the mathematical model, but others understandably didn’t, and this was a massively important and emotional issue for so many.
MLAS from all other parties reported receiving a huge volume of phone calls and emails on the matter over the weekend. The DUP’S handling of this has been incredibly clumsy.
On a day when a judge accused Michelle O’neill of deliberately choosing to ignore the rule of law by delaying a compensation scheme for Troubles victims, the headlines were dominated by the DUP minister’s belated U-turn.
Weir is widely regarded as a decent and reliable minister at Stormont. He is dedicated to his Education portfolio, and is totally on top of his brief factually.
Whether he has the political guile needed is another matter. He didn’t come across as strong and decisive yesterday. With the immense challenges of reopening schools looming, that’s not a good look.