Politics & Power Quote by Estelle Morris

“Drift” is doing a lot of work here. Morris frames school failure not as the predictable outcome of funding formulas, poverty, or policy churn, but as a kind of negligent natural process: institutions lazily floating along while nobody grabs the wheel. It’s a choice of metaphor that quietly absolves the system even as it condemns the previous stewards. If schools “drift,” then the villain isn’t a set of structural incentives; it’s complacency. That sets up the core political move: a clean before-and-after story where the new government supplies the missing force of will.

The phrase “pattern of continuing failure” turns complex, locally specific problems into an identifiable, repeatable disease - something you can “break” with decisive intervention. “Break that pattern” carries the moral charge of urgency while sidestepping the messy question of method. Break it how? With inspections, targets, new leadership, academies, standardized testing regimes? The quote keeps the tools offstage because the rhetorical goal is legitimacy, not detail.

Then comes the self-certifying flourish: “is determined” and “is successfully doing so.” Determination is presented as a policy instrument; success is asserted as a fact. It’s the voice of early-2000s education reform politics in Britain, when “standards,” measurable outcomes, and managerial competence were sold as ethical imperatives. The subtext is a warning and a promise: accept disruption - closures, takeovers, tougher accountability - because passivity is the real cruelty, and this government has the data, the backbone, and the mandate to act.