After a rather quiet summer, Rishi Sunak's Conservative government probably hoped for a better start to the new school year. On Monday, September 4, as young Britons returned to school, the government was facing the wrath of parents as nearly 150 schools were notified at the last moment (in late August) that they had to close all or part of their buildings immediately because they were in danger of collapsing. This is due to RAAC (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete), a porous construction material that is much lighter than conventional concrete. RAAC is a low-cost material which was widely used in post-war United Kingdom public buildings. But it has a short lifespan, and after 30 or 40 years, it loses strength.

The prospect of weeks of disruption, or even the return of online courses, is worrying hundreds of parents and students whose schooling has already been severely disrupted by Covid. And it is likely to make Sunak even more unpopular. This fall he hoped to put his cabinet back in working order with a view to the general elections scheduled for 2024. But the opposition party Labour is ahead in the polls by about 20 points, and is exploiting an increasingly widespread feeling in the general public that "Britain is broken."

Not much seems to be working properly here any more. There have been train strikes for over a year, rivers and beaches are among the most polluted in Europe, and it has become almost impossible to get an appointment with GPs from the NHS, the National Health Service, because they are so few and far between.

"I can think of no more defining image about the last 13 years of Conservative government than children being sat in classrooms under metal props to prevent the ceilings literally falling in on their heads" said Bridget Phillipson, the education minister in Labour leader Keir Starmer's shadow cabinet. "Rishi Sunak bears a personal responsibility for this situation, he too has cut budgets," the MP said on Sunday on the BBC.

The education budget has suffered greatly from the austerity policies introduced by the Tories from 2010 onwards. In particular, David Cameron's government abandoned an ambitious program called "Building Schools for the Future," launched in 2004 by Labour's Tony Blair. According to a House of Commons report published on September 1, for the fiscal year 2021-2022, the capital expenditure budget for England's schools was £4.9 billion (€5.2 billion), down 50% when inflation is taken into account, compared with what was allocated in 2009-2010.

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