It’s the incompetence, stupid

If a week is a long time in politics, then 13 years is a positive eternity. In 1994 it emerged that the new Leader of the Opposition, Tony Blair, had sent his eldest child, Euan, to the London Oratory School — a school that had opted out of town hall control under a Conservative policy strongly opposed by Labour. ‘Any parent wants the best for their children,’ Mr Blair said at the time. ‘I am not going to make a choice for my child on the basis of what is the politically correct thing to do.’

Far from damaging the Labour leader, his robust defence of his family’s decision burnished his claim to be a champion of parental choice, dissatisfied with standards in the comprehensive system and determined to do something about it. The same held true in 1996 when Harriet Harman confirmed that she was sending her son to a grammar school.