The stupid party hasn't gone away, you know

The Tories used to be known as the stupid party and one of David Cameron's tasks in changing its public image was to get out the message that the idiots had been replaced by bright young things.
It was never going to happen. It was impossible to get rid of all the old fools and in any case their replacements were mainly silly young things. Their bizarre grasp on reality is made worse by being fed a party line ( a la New Labour) which they only partially grasp and think it substitutes for intelligent debate.
When listening to Graham Stuart on the Today programme this morning I couldn't help thinking that he should be at school - in a remedial class, perhaps - rather than chairing the Children, Schools and Families Committee.
Instead of holding a meaningful discussion with Sally Hunt of the lecturers' union, he fell back on the pathetic one-note line of challenging Labour and the unions to say what their proposals are for cuts to solve the financial crisis "of their making".  Playground politics.
Stuart was defending the Government decision to end Educational Maintenance Allowances, one of the most disgraceful, short-sighted moves even by this administration's standards.
It doesn't make sense in any way and won't save money. It will just drive many young people out of education.
The decision is papered over with the results of a lone, discredited survey which concluded that most of those receiving EMA would continue in education without it. All other investigations, plus the advice of just about everyone running colleges, come to a very different conclusion.
This is not the first time that Graham Stuart has been wheeled out to defend Government policy rather than provide the independent-minded analysis which we should expect from committee chairs.
If this is the result of letting MPs elect the chairmen of Commons committees, let's go back to the old system.