We are now less than a month away from the IW Council elections and all the candidates are in place.

The Conservative Party will be looking to hold on to their comfortable majority and have announced that a regeneration of Newport is one of their main priorities.

Leading the Tory campaign again is current council leader, Dave Stewart, who very noticeably seems to be keeping his head down this time around on education improvements.

Education was the topic which ultimately cost the Tories and their former council leader, David Pugh, power in 2013.

Pugh had pledged before the 2009 election that he would put the IW schools into the top ten per cent in the country, but after reforming the system from three tier to two, we ended up at the very bottom of the league tables, and at the 2013 elections, Pugh paid for his failings by being voted out of his Shanklin South seat, and the Tory Party also lost control of the council.

Dave Stewart again decided to use education to try and get the Tories back into power in 2017.

He pledged to improve the Ofsted ratings of our schools; stating that before 2021 at least ten per cent of the schools would have a rating of ‘Outstanding’, but his personal target was actually 25 per cent.

At the time of Mr Stewart’s pledge, just two of the Island’s 50 schools had an Ofsted rating of ‘Outstanding’, so he was promising to take that number to at least five, but 12 or 13 was his real objective.

The electorate liked the cut of Stewart’s jib, and he was duly handed the keys to the council chambers to show us what he could do.

How has Mr Stewart fared? Did he reach his minimum pledge of five, or did he manage to hit his personal target of 12/13?

The answer is, the IW now has no schools with an ‘Outstanding’ rating. The two schools that were rated as outstanding have now lost that status.

It is no wonder Cllr Stewart is keeping his head down regarding education, but will the Tories’ failure to do what they promised see them once again swept from power, or will this new promise of regenerating Newport be enough to earn them a second term in office?

They would have to do it without a number of their existing experienced councillors, including the excellent Ryde North councillor, Wayne Whittle, who is standing down due to ‘obstruction’.

Despite Mr Whittle being a businessman experienced in tourism, his party didn’t want him to sit on any of the committees where his experience could be used, which is quite bizarre.

Also bizarre is that a potential Conservative councillor, Stuart Brown, has been forced to stand down for calling a female Labour MP a ‘vile woman’ on Twitter — Mrs Thatcher was called far worse.

If Mr Brown had called the MP a vile ‘politician’ instead of ‘woman’, no one would have batted an eyelid, but in these days of political correctness, and because misogyny is a hot topic, Brown was thrown under the bus, as was the poor teacher in Batley who showed the cartoon picture of Mohammad.

He clearly wasn’t racist, but he too was thrown to the wolves by his bosses and given no support whatsoever from his union or fellow teachers.

There is one word for these people who cave in to the PC brigade — cowards!

Without the likes of Whittle and Brown, the Tories will be hoping their new tactic of standing teenage candidates will see them regain power. Matthew Ambrosini, Rhys Wright and Cara Lock are all standing, while the Green Party have Cowes Enterprise pupil, Cameron Palin standing too.

If any of these young ‘uns manage to get elected, at least they might be able to give some advice on how to get our schools performing better...if they aren’t obstructed.