The authoritarian tendency does not have the answer to Britain's deep problems

Two of the most hopeful promises on which Tony Blair's government was elected were those concerning education and crime. But after five and a half years, progress seems stalled and, worse, the Government is increasingly heading in the wrong direction.

On crime, being tough on its causes has been overlooked in favour of ever more punitive measures to impress the authoritarian press. On education, the rise in standards has slowed.

That was the context for the speech delivered yesterday by Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education. It was on discipline in schools – right at the junction between education and crime, and so a critical policy area for the next five years. A pity, then, that Mr Clarke's starting point is so mistaken.

He began by declaring "it is time to restore respect for authority". Even if this were a desirable objective, which is doubtful, it should be obvious that it is beyond the power of any government to achieve it. Someone should explain to Mr Clarke the difference between deference and consideration. The decline of deference can be uncomfortable, but it is a good thing. People ought to respect their fellows, and they should respect the rules which allow society to function; but people in positions of authority have to earn respect, not simply expect it.

This authoritarianism underlies Mr Clarke's vision of education. For all New Labour's rhetoric of empowering people, it is one of centralised state control. In the vehemence of his attacks on parents who allow their children to play truant (he quickly excused the Prime Minister, who took his children out of school to go abroad), he loses sight of the fact that schools exist to provide a service to children and their parents. The idea that bad parents and difficult children must be bullied, fined or threatened with jail to get them to conform is simply counter-productive.

Of course, there are some families that will benefit from such a punitive approach. The surprising case of Patricia Amos, who was shocked into mending her ways after being jailed for failing to ensure her daughters went to school, does not mean it is right in most cases. Most inadequate parents are precisely those people who will not pay fines and for whom prison offers no hope of reform.

Punitive measures to force truants to attend school are often misdirected. Children skip school because they do not think it offers them much, and in many cases they are right. The emphasis on academic work and testing labels too many of them as failures. If they are forced to be in school, they are likely to behave badly, thus preventing other children from learning. Then the authoritarians become just as vehement about excluding them from school as they previously were about forcing them to be included.

The sensible approach is to try to make education fit the pupil rather than the other way round. Mr Clarke mentions in passing "flexible learning packages for older pupils who are not motivated by traditional provision", a phrase so jargon-ridden it sounds insincere. He mentioned some of the excellent work of his predecessor in funding out-of-school units where excluded pupils can receive a good education rather than being left at home or roaming the streets. But instead of building on this partial foundation, he prefers the smack of firm discipline.

This is neither going to tackle the causes of crime, many of which do lie in school-age experiences, nor instil a love of learning which, for many children, is the best escape from the cycle of deprivation.