I cannot recall a week in which Britain’s private schools have received better PR. The Labour party has pledged to scrap them because of the huge advantages they confer on their pupils — including ‘lifelong networks for the powerful’, according to Owen Jones. Presumably that’s a reference to Jeremy Corbyn, who, thanks to his private school background, has risen to the top of the Labour party in spite of getting two Es at A-level.
Laura Parker, the national coordinator for Momentum, welcomed Labour’s new policy on the grounds that ‘every child deserves a world-class education, not only those who are able to pay for it’. In other words, only private schools are able to provide a ‘world-class education’. No wonder Shami Chakrabarti, Labour’s shadow attorney-general, spends £21,246 a year on sending her son to Dulwich College.
All nonsense, of course. Since 2010, the attainment gap between private schools and state schools has shrunk considerably.
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