Nursery World - To the point... (27)

Our weekly columnist Beatrix Campbell sees nothing to get excited about in the Conservative Party's childcare agenda You would not want to go into a general election promising to match pound for pound the prospectus of your enemy. And you would not want to announce a new agenda to the absolute indifference of the nation's media. But that is what has happened to the Conservatives.

You would not want to go into a general election promising to match pound for pound the prospectus of your enemy. And you would not want to announce a new agenda to the absolute indifference of the nation's media. But that is what has happened to the Conservatives.

On 28 March Michael Howard presented the Tories' childcare policy, announcing that the party would give an extra 250,000 families 50 a week towards childcare (see news, p4). Questions? pleaded Howard. He was answered by the mass media's total silence.

However, the Conservatives' childcare proposals are interesting. They are an index of how far we've come - how far mothers and childcare professionals and providers have persuaded the world of Westminster that this is one of the great issues of our time.

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