It looks as though the Government is at last taking a positive step in sorting out our shambolic and  inept education system. At the weekend it was reported that Sir Michael Wilshaw, the headmaster who tamed a tough inner city comprehensive school, is to become, as the Sunday Times put it, “the standards enforcer for England’s schools”.  It’s about time too, and in fact probably thirty years overdue but let’s be thankful that somebody in power (in this case the Education Secretary, Michael Gove) has accepted that something has to be done to try and create an acceptable system of education for our children.

Wilshaw has undoubtedly performed wonders in introducing discipline (now that’s a word you don’t hear much these days) to his school, imposing high standards of behaviour, banning mobile phones and insisting that all children, irrespective of their background, wear school uniforms. The result is that the children are evidently happier because they have structure in their lives (something that any good parent will tell you is absolutely vital) and their academic achievements have rocketed with seven pupils from the last academic year gaining places at Cambridge.

Of course he faces a huge task in trying to replicate his success on a national level and I just hope that he has the support of the teaching profession and perhaps more importantly that of the teaching unions. That support will prove crucial though the early signs from the liberal and ostrich-like leadership of the unions are not encouraging.

He deserves and needs the support of all of us, or at least those of us who care about the future of our children and our country, those of us not motivated by the politically correct liberalism that for so long has been choking the life out of this country. He needs to keep faith in what he has done so far and raise it to a national level. He needs to do to English education what Rudolf Giuliani did to New York, transform it against all the odds adopting the same policy of zero tolerance that the former New York mayor did. For him to succeed there has to be a complete sea change in this country’s thinking so that words like duty, respect and discipline once more become a regular part of our language and lives and more importantly of the lives of our children. He has to succeed; the consequences of failure are too dire to think about.