GORDON BROWN’S right-hand man has named the women he thinks Britain’s female teenagers should be looking up to, and they are all Tory icons.

Ed Balls, the children’s secretary, said he believed the Spice Girls and Lady Thatcher were the people to inspire self-confidence in British girls.

“I think the Spice Girls have been good role models,” Balls said. “They inspire girls to believe they can stand up for themselves and do well.”

Balls, who launches a 10-year plan this week to improve the education, health and family lives of British children, added: “Lady Thatcher was in many ways a very good role model for girls as well.

“We are always looking for role models of people who have confidence, blaze a trail, define themselves and do well.”

Balls’s praise is the latest example of Brownite courting of the Iron Lady. At the start of Brown’s premiership, he invited her to tea at Downing Street and was photographed grinning with her outside.

The Spice Girls, who recently began their comeback tour, named the former Tory premier as one of their heroines when they proclaimed themselves Conservatives in 1996, saying that “socialism is bad”.

Balls’s comments come in advance of his plan, to be outlined in parliament on Tuesday. Measures are expected to range from free nursery care for children as young as two to support for disabled children and help for families to improve health and safety at home, including stair gates and electrical-socket covers. There will also be targets for reducing child obesity.

The plan follows a UN report in February that placed Britain bottom in a table of child welfare in developed countries.

As well as education, health and nursery care, areas likely to be addressed range from computer games to television-viewing, advertising and bedtime stories.

Balls will also announce a wide range of expert studies expected to be completed over the coming months. They will include research into the effects of advertising on children, covering areas such as the “sexualisation” of girls through fashion and the media and the consequences for eating and health.

Another study will look into the effects of alcohol on young people, reviewing, for example, the advertising of drink on television early in the evening.

However, the children’s secretary damped expectations of any major offensive against drinking similar to that waged on smoking. He ruled out steps such as banning alcohol companies from sponsoring football clubs.

“There is a difference between smoking and alcohol, which if drunk reasonably is part of our society,” said Balls. “A message that said to young people all alcohol was wrong would not be a sensible message.”

This weekend the Conservatives criticised the plan for being too broad and trying to dictate to families.

“This government tries to run everything and as a result can’t deliver where it counts,” said Michael Gove, the shadow children’s secretary. “Improving children’s lives is crucial, as is closing the gap between rich and poor, but that mission requires real focus.

“Instead of having a strategy on when and how our children should play with their rusks, ministers should be asking why, after years of their central planning, we are plummeting down every educational league table.

“They need to concentrate on giving teachers power to impose order in classrooms and focus on getting children to read rather than having 576 targets for toddlers.”

But Balls said the plan was as much about information as regulation. “Parents aren’t asking government to take over the responsibility of parents,” he said. “It is up to parents to strike the right balance whether it is about safety or computer games.

“There are times when parents want us to regulate, but also there is a role for government to provide parents with information to make their own judgment.”

Balls is also expected to order a review of primary education as gains in the three Rs made in Labour’s early years have levelled off.

Ministers are showing a growing interest in alternatives to the current system of nationwide tests for younger schoolchildren.

Pilot schemes for children to take tests when they are ready – as happens with exams for music grades – are likely to be extended. If successful, they may be considered as a replacement for the current system, in which children throughout the country sit Sat tests at the same time.

Critics say current tests distort teaching by forcing schools into neglecting areas subjects on which children are not examined. Any retreat from the current system would represent a victory for teachers’ groups. John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said he would welcome such a change.

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