ALTHOUGH I used to see Oliver Dowden at meetings in London during the seven months he was paymaster general, I can recall only one face-to-face conversation with him.

In September 2019, he was sent to Edinburgh by his then boss Michael Gove to tell me that the lengthy discussions on intergovernmental relations within the UK, which had been taking place as part of the Brexit process, were to be removed from the Joint Ministerial Committee, and handled in some as yet unspecified but separate way.

This at first sight insignificant and technical change would have further reduced the small amount of leverage the devolved governments still possessed. In addition, Wales and ourselves were strongly of the view it was not for London to dictate how these issues –which were of common concern, and indeed belonged to all participants – should be handled.

Consequently, and of course as politely as possible, I sent him away with a flea in his ear, suggesting that if Michael Gove wanted to pursue such a change, he table an item for the next JMC so that it could be properly discussed.

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Dowden had been deputy chief of staff to David Cameron and was the first of that type of Tory to back Boris Johnson. His former anti-Brexit Tory colleague David Gauke has observed recently that Dowden’s political ambition appears to have been the driving force behind that decision.

Dowden was rewarded by Johnson with promotion to culture secretary and then as joint chair of the Conservative Party though – again according to Gauke – he really wants to be education secretary.

Last weekend, Dowden made a well-reported speech to the very right-wing Heritage Foundation, an influential Republican-supporting body based in Washington.

The text, portentously entitled “Standing up for for our values”, is available online – but unless you really want to experience something that would be failed as an early undergraduate essay, lacking as it does any factual grounding and reading as it does like a disjointed stream of consciousness – I would avoid it.

An attack on “wokery” in all its forms even Gauke – a fellow Tory – called it “misguided and at times ridiculous”.

In fact, it is much worse than that. It is certainly pompous, empty of content and badly written, but it is also positively dangerous.

Alarm bells should ring when any politician claims that something is a “form of decadence” and asserts that meeting the threat of external foes is a reason for suppressing democratic debate and discussion.

But concern must become alarm when a politician specifically names among the things and ideas which have to be confronted to achieve that end universities, schools and the study of history and the social sciences.

Dowden’s thesis, if it can be graced with that title, is that “wokery” is already cancelling out the values of democratic societies, such as the US and UK.

“Unthinking revisionism” is, he alleges, rampant in universities and is sapping what he calls “societies’ … self confidence”. The “common sense of endeavour” that we apparently need is being destroyed, as is “our patriotism”.

“Our” is, of course, not defined by Dowden, but that, aside the hypocrisy of hearing such nonsense from a member of a government which illegally prorogued Parliament, led by a Prime Minister with scant regard for the rule of law, which has instituted a vicious clampdown on migration and which has separated itself from the most successful political and trading block in history, is mind-blowing.

Yet there is a devious method in his seeming madness, for at the heart of the speech is Dowden’s claim that he already, whilst culture secretary, was active in cracking down on “institutions ... which promote political agendas” and praise for the fact that the Tories are making it “illegal” for schools to teach the concept of “white privilege”.

Coupled with his explicit denunciation of universities, this is, in fact, a public job application. He hopes that those around Johnson will note with approval how sound he is in fighting the cancel culture wars and pass the message on. Taken alongside the revised guidance on teaching of “controversial” subjects just issued by the current English Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, the speech signifies that there is a major Tory assault on education under way, with the aim of driving out any balanced assessment of the policies now being pursued by a divisive and corrupt Tory UK Government.

The Tories have form, of course. It was Thatcher who introduced the notorious Section 2A regulation which forbade any formal reference in schools to homosexuality. Now, a similar approach seeks to drive out discussion of racism, inequality and – if they could find a way to make their educational writ run in Scotland – no doubt constitutional change, too.

Anything that does not confirm to the selfish and self-satisfied world view of the current Tory elite is to be made a thought crime and teachers held responsible for its elimination.

In reality the effect of Section 2A was not to change the way that homosexuality was discussed, often in safe spaces which helped young people, but to make teachers so nervous of getting it wrong that such discussion was essentially eliminated. So it will also be with all those things that Oliver Dowden defines as “woke”.

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Of course, there are threats to freedom of speech, though they come as strongly from right-wing extremists as from their counterparts on the left.

The responsible way to confront them is to empower and support those who teach in schools and universities, helping them in their many efforts to steer a thoughtful and careful way through.

Young people have always tended to extremes. Education is not the cause, but the answer, channelling destructive passion into constructive and inclusive ways of making a better world.

What Dowden feels threatened by isn’t “wokeism” but impartial, well-sourced, factual truth – and that is what he and his fellow Tories are trying to suppress.