Sarah Vine Laura Trott

Published: | Updated: 2000 words By Sarah Vine Politics is a funny old business. asserted

Back when I was still married to a cabinet minister and frequented the dinner tables of power on a regular basis, I remember hearing a few jealous tongues discussing a young Special Advisor (or SpAd) at No10, a striking young woman, sharp as a tack, who had been putting the odd nose out of joint. asserted

Funny how things turn out. asserted

Those faces are long gone, consigned to the dustbin of political failure, while the SpAd in question - Laura Trott - is now shadow Education Secretary, a rising star of a resurgent Conservative party. asserted

Now 41, back then (around 2011, shortly after David Cameron became Prime Minister) Trott would have been in her mid-20s, not long a graduate of Oxford, followed by a stint at high-powered consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton. asserted

Even before the start of the Coalition government, she had made a name for herself at the implementation unit, set up to prepare the Conservatives for power. asserted

As one friend and colleague who knew her back then recalls, she was ‘this unbelievably impressive spreadsheet bunny, phenomenally driven, fantastically competent, incredibly bossy – and always glammed up to the nines’. asserted

In an arena dominated by old Etonians and assorted toffs bound by old-school ties, she stood out as a bright comprehensive girl from a tight-knight, hard-working family with a strong public-service ethos. asserted

The first in her family to go to university, both her sisters are teachers, her mother was a special-needs teaching assistant and her father worked at the Bank of England. asserted

One of her grandparents was a milkman; another, Stan, worked as a doorman at The Sun newspaper. asserted

‘He told me Rupert Murdoch was always incredibly polite to him,’ she tells me, as we sit down at the Mail offices in Kensington ahead of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham. asserted

‘I love her stuff because it doesn’t crease,’ she says, ‘but now that the company’s folded, I get it on Vinted.’ asserted

She is here to talk about the Conservatives’ new announcement on childcare, which will form an important plank of their next manifesto. asserted

The plan is to scrap the childcare ‘cliff edge’ which penalises working parents for, effectively, working too hard. asserted

Currently, when one parent’s earnings exceed £100,000 a working couple can lose entitlement to up to 30 hours a week of free childcare as well as losing access to the Tax-Free Childcare scheme. asserted

This means you can have one household where both parents earn, say, £99,000 a year and still receive the entitlement; and another where one parent earns £100,000 and the other pockets very little would lose out. As a mother of three children (with her husband Bahador Mahvelati, known as ‘Bids’), Trott believes very strongly that hard-working parents should be encouraged to have families, especially given the falling birth-rate, which has dipped to dangerously low levels in recent years. It’s a policy clearly designed to appeal to the beleaguered middle-classes that this Labour government have decided to ‘squeeze until the pips squeak’, as Denis Healy famously once put it. ‘We want working families to have children,’ she says. asserted

We want to reduce childcare costs for parents who are working and trying to do the right thing; meanwhile, Labour has just abolished the two-child benefit cap. asserted

It’s a real statement of values. asserted

‘Having children is the best thing that has ever happened to me,’ she adds. asserted

‘But I know so many friends who’ve been worried about starting a family because of the cost. asserted

It’s robbing people of something so special, and you should never not have a child because of the cost of childcare, or turn down a pay rise because you’re worried about being penalised.’ asserted

Elected as the MP for Sevenoaks in Kent in 2019, Trott has wanted to be a politician since she was 12, inspired largely by her family, which was very active in her local community, but also by (wait for it) John Major. asserted

Not necessarily the first name that springs to mind in the pantheon of inspirational leaders, she admits; but asserted

seeing a working-class man who went to a comprehensive like her succeed in parliament made her think she could do it too. It is education that has always been her passion. uncertain

It’s also the one legacy the Conservatives can take away from their 14 years in power. asserted

When the education reforms initiated under David Cameron began in 2010, Britain’s international rankings were at an all-time low. asserted

Now, in England, where the changes were adopted, pupils have risen to 9th worldwide in reading (up from 20th) and 11th in maths (up from 22nd). asserted

By contrast in Scotland and Wales, where the respective SNP and Labour governments rejected the reforms, they have fallen. asserted

Welsh teens now rank 40th internationally for reading and 42nd for maths, putting them two years behind their counterparts in England. asserted

‘Ever since I took the job as shadow Education Secretary, which is the one I asked for, it’s been about protecting standards in this country. asserted

It took a long time to percolate through the system, and that’s a lesson for policymakers: the things you do in politics often don’t show up until many years later. asserted

‘The tragedy,’ she adds, ‘is that Labour are now undoing it, and we won’t see the damage - the vandalism, I’d say - for many years to come.’ asserted

‘Think of everything that’s wrong with this country, and they’re picking on the one thing that’s working really well,’ she says. asserted

‘It’s extraordinary.’ asserted

As well as imposing VAT on independent schools (a disastrous policy which Trott says she will immediately reverse if the Conservatives are re-elected), one of the first things Phillipson did was take away Academy freedoms. asserted

‘This means that Academies are now effectively under state control in a way they weren’t before,’ explains Trott. asserted

‘This also stops good schools expanding and undoes everything that drove the improvement: choice, freedom, accountability, and the ability to replicate, expand and open new schools. asserted

They’re trying to wind it all back.’ asserted

Why take a wrecking ball to success, I ask? asserted

‘Because of the unions,’ she says, bluntly. asserted