A worrying school of thought

Back in the day, I remember vividly that the Greater Glasgow region had Catholic schools and non-denominational schools but it seems there was another divide that passed me unnoticed until today. Apparently there were Labour schools and Tory schools and, now, SNP schools.

Rhona Brankin, Labour shadow Education Minister, has been claiming 328 of the schools being delivered by the Scottish Government between 2007 and 2011 are 'their' schools. Which confuses, even perplexes me. Surely they are 'Government' schools regardless of who happens to be in power at the time?

It's also counter-intuitive to suggest that just because Labour/Lib Dem built hundreds of schools then the SNP need to build even more. A debate that stretches to 'this number is bigger than that number' doesn't usually cover the risks and factors that need ticked off.

For a start, with the easy, expensive credit card that is PFI, it's much easier to throw up new school buildings and put off the queasy interest payments for the decades to come. Any crossover to a more responsible way of paying for schools will inevitably have a period where less schools will be built as there is less money to spend.

If you're going to pay off your exorbitant Mastercard bill, then you don't go on a shopping spree at the same time. And the Chief Executive of the Scottish Futures Trust has already put my mind at ease that SFT will be up and running in the next few years in a recent interview.

Also, if Labour and the Lib Dems did go on a school-building splurge in the dog days of their eight years in power, then presumably many schools that were in need of replacement will have had that need satisfied.

I daresay that Scottish schools that are truly in desperate need of rebuilding will either have been included in the latest programme of rebuilding, will be replaced with one of these 328 'Labour/Lib Dem' schools or local pressure will be put on the MSP to act sooner rather than later.

That, for me, is all as it should be and is as it has ever been.

But there is something horridly parochial in saying that school's yours and that one's mine. We saw what the Catholic/Protestant divisions can do to communities, do we really want to go splitting schools again, this time on political lines?