Seumas Milne's devastating critique of Gove's policies on schools (Crony capitalism feeds the corporate plan for schools, 15 February) should add further strength to the many people who are fighting to resist the destruction of a publicly funded and locally accountable education system. However, it is untrue there has been no national political protest. The Lib Dem conference in Liverpool in September 2010 passed a motion condemning the academies and free schools policy. We argued that it would be divisive, unfair and costly. How right we were.
The academies programme has divided local schools from each other and caused dissension within schools, between teachers, heads and governors. By top-slicing local authority funding, it has diverted resources from essential services to the neediest children and transferred them to schools judged to be "outstanding", largely because of their relatively privileged intake. As for cost, there is a staggering black hole of £600m, possibly more, in the government's education budget, caused by giving the converting academies more money than they need to replace the local authority services they are no longer entitled to.
As for the free schools, this is a massively wasteful use of public money which will exacerbate social division and make the cost-effective provision of school places even more difficult. Gove has sold these policies by garnishing them with words like innovative, inspirational, ambitious and liberating. In a few years we will look back and wonder how he was allowed to get away with the most radical and harmful restructuring of the education system for over a century.
Peter Downes
Vice-president, Liberal Democrat Education Association