Kenneth Baker, Baron Baker of Dorking

What, what they mainly focus on is operational efficiency and the police, but I just thought I'd, I'd give some insights.

You've got Kenneth Baker was first, was home secretary between 1990 and 1992, and he said, "When I was home secretary, asylum application numbers suddenly rose to 45,000 in 1991.

It was the first year of the burst of immigration.

The foreign secretary and I tried very hard to contain it, and we failed and so have all our successors." [laughs] Oh, you just failed.

No, please.

Party conference, Margaret always had a few people to dinner at Chequers to celebrate her birthday, which came a couple of weeks after the party conference, and she called John Wakeham, Cecil Parkinson, Kenneth Baker, Alastair McAlpine, myself, and there was one other and I'm feeling guilty not remembering.

The six of us to dinner, and we were given our jobs for the election.

The purpose of the dinner was to tell us what we would be doing.

And, you know, I think if you look at the history of education in terms of educational policy over the last 30 or so years, it's not just been Labour governments that have believed in, uh, h- high standards everywhere.

So when I was at school, I saw the impact that Kenneth Baker's policies and the transformation that he brought, uh, made to my life.

So I, I rem- I was the first year of, at primary school to, to do SATs, the first year.

I think they were boycotted.

You can't, you can't get away from not, not having those basics.

So I've always believed that there is a, a, a strong role for government in setting the direction and ensuring that all children have h- we have high expectations and high standards for all children.

It was Kenneth Baker who also brought in the national curriculum.

Okay.

I thought, I hate you, but you're honest about it.

That's winter, right? Whereas Kenneth Baker, I know we're going back a bit and it's a bit niche.

He was like autumn to me.

He was trying to be all like, no, no, no, it's really nice, the colours.

Mm.

And what he had sought to do was actually to learn from some of the lessons, to be fair, that previous Conservative education ministers, particularly Ken Clarke, had initiated, uh, Ken Baker also.

Uh, you don't have to be called Kenneth in order to have good ideas in education.

[laughs]

Because they've turned...

Kenneth Baker, like I said, never really did anybody any harm.

I mean, he was a pretty... standard, thatcherite cabinet minister.

So he didn't do a lot of good, but he wasn't the devil.