Off the Record

If you were expecting the main parties to set out their position on grammar schools, you wouldn’t have gleaned much from the Labour and Conservative party conferences. Both seemed to have signed a code of omerta to retain an awkward silence on the issue.

The irony is that both would have much preferred to say something: Labour because it opposes them and the Conservatives because they want more of them. Instead we got a deathly silence. As we know, the government has shelved its plans for more grammars after the dismal election result, which probably had a lot to do with it.

The reorganisation of health care services in Kent and Medway represents one of the largest overhauls of recent years – and that is saying something.

The so-called Sustainability and Transformation Partnership is being overseen by a board which has the job of “making recommendations back to the statutory bodies.” Part of that job involves considering various reports to it setting out all manner of issues and how services might be reconfigured. But what those reports say is a mystery.

The board has turned down our request for the papers it considered at its last meeting, arguing that “it was not a decision-making body” and that the reports were “work in progress.”

You can’t say that the new leader