Cameron fails the test

The most perceptive indictment of the Blair era was delivered, in an admirably candid speech last September, by Alan Milburn (interviewed by Fraser Nelson on page 14). Describing his own rise from a council estate to the ranks of the Cabinet, Mr Milburn asked, ‘Do we think that for a child growing up today in one of Britain’s poorest estates such mobility is possible or likely? Sadly, I think not.’

That observation should inspire the core mission statement of the next Conservative government. Asked about his gilded schooling at Eton and youthful indiscretions, David Cameron has stuck to the mantra that a person’s origins should be irrelevant: ‘What matters most of all is what you’re going to do.’ That is absolutely right: to adapt Disraeli, the modern Tory party is a party of aspiration, or it is nothing.

How depressing, then, that one of the first major policy announcements of Mr Cameron’s leadership should be to rule out, unequivocally, a drive towards selection in state schools.