Wot Ben said

And I can’t really be bothered to respond to the numerous assumptions that have already occurred in this thread.

I’m interested – for those that think he should be removed, who is better placed to take on the role, and what policy changes should be made to drive significant improvements in the performance of our children in Maths, Literacy and Verbal Reasoning?

Given that the performance of children in the UK has been sliding on many international comparators for the last 15 years, what is the root cause and what is the solution?

Did anyone vote for a ConDem coalition?

No, because everyone voted for a member to represent the fellow constituents of their constituency.

We’ve effectively got a Tory government that we didn’t vote for.

No, you got a ConDem coalition, because that’s the way the country as a whole voted, and because no other coalition or minority government could be formed.
My voting form didn’t have a Tory box nor a Conservative box, nor a ConDem box, and I’d wager the same was true for every other person on here that put an X in a box.

Tony Blair, in his most popular years, still only managed to get 1 in 5 of the voting age population to vote for him.

Not sure of the actual number of people that voted for him but it was much less than 20% of the voting population (edit: it was about 33,000 in 1997 – similar number to those that voted for Gove last time). It might have been more than 50% of the eligible voters in his constituency. One of the few MPs that actually do achieve a proper majority.

My voting form didn’t have a Tory box nor a Conservative box, nor a ConDem box, and I’d wager the same was true for every other person on here that put an X in a box.

Yes, yes, yes, you vote for a local MP not a party – that’s a lovely story. But when MPs almost always follow the party whip, when the party leaders set all policy and the MPs are just there to vote it through, any idea of MPs being independent is a nonsense.

MPs do what they’re told – and the people doing the telling aren’t their constituents.