In 1959 a young MP gave a rousing maiden speech in parliament, imploring local government to allow the press into its meetings. So passionate, and correct, was her plea for transparency that it stands alone as the only maiden speech ever to create a law. Through subsequent iterations, it helped to create an openness that today reaches into hospital and transport bodies and grants access not only to the press but the public.

It is dismaying to learn that the government’s proposal to convert all schools to academies pushes the public back outside. One might consider such a move – excluding the masses in order to favour a powerful elite – to be typical of the Conservatives.

But that original agitator of transparency back in 1959 was of the party, and George Osborne, the man who announced the all-academies policy, considers himself her heir apparent. That young MP was Margaret Thatcher.

It is startling to find myself in agreement with the Iron Lady, but fighting current daft Tory policies sometimes means accepting friends in unusual places.

The law Thatcher created requires any body acting on powers “delegated” from elected people to follow a clear set of rules. The group must give at least three days’ notice of meetings, publish an agenda in advance, and allow the public to attend and ask questions. The electorate can be excluded only at set times and for clear, publicly stated reasons.

Unfortunately, these rules go out of the window for academies, which are overseen by the eight senior civil servants known as regional schools commissioners, advised by a small panel of headteachers. Their meetings are not advertised, the public is banned from attending and no agendas are available. Patchy “summaries” of the meetings are published months after decisions are made.

It’s not as if commissioner decisions are trivial. These bureaucrats decide whether new schools will open in an area and who will run them. If a school is poorly performing, they can sack the company running it and bring in another, without any need to consult parents or explain their reasons.

Since Osborne announced the all-academy policy, worried parents have been asking what happens if their lovely local primary joins other nearby schools to become a single academy trust. They are nervous that if, a few years from now, one of the schools commissioners finds something wrong with the new trust, they can fire the managers, invite in a new academy chain that local families don’t approve of, and their lovely local school is gone. Those parents are right to be nervous.

If all academy chains were the same, this might be OK. But they’re not. In September last year, the nuclear weapons manufacturer BAE Systems created a spin-off arm to sponsor a school near its factory in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. There are good arguments for doing so. BAE is a big local employer; it already provides facilities for the local college. It is trying to do a good thing. But, justifiably, some parents with moral objections to the weapons were concerned. No one expects them to have a veto, but it seems a significant step backward that the decision was made behind closed doors, without room for representation or explanation.

Why the caginess? The chief schools commissioner, David Carter, has said the meetings must remain private because board discussions “go into quite a lot of detail” and academy chains might not think it “fair” to have these aired in public. He worries publishing information about why academy chains were – or were not – selected to run schools would discourage them from applying to take over struggling ones.

Yet leaders working in the schools themselves face huge burdens of openness and accountability. Ofsted reports go into critical detail of school performance. Financial accounts for academies are published in full. The finest details of exam performance are splashed across government websites. Any school leader who thinks transparency isn’t “fair” or can’t be trusted to step up to the plate in the face of truth is fired. So why are the schools commissioners protected?

Thatcher’s speech gives three reasons why they should not be. First, the public must know “how moneys are being spent”. Second, open meetings are “the greatest and most effective check against arbitrary action”. And third, it “stimulates interest of local persons”. Finally, she pointed out that people with powers handed to them from elected members – precisely as the commissioners have – should “safeguard civil liberties, rather than think that administrative convenience should take first place in law”.

For the first and possibly only time I agree with Thatcher. Why her biggest fan, Osborne, wants to smash her legacy is a question more people should be asking.