Theresa May has done a poor job of stealing Labour’s clothes

‘I don’t think we are a charity.  We are a successful, multi-national educational institution,’ explained the public school head to me. And he was right. As it happens, he was a highly progressive head committed to using the wealth and resource he enjoyed to collaborate with an under-performing local academy.  For the first time, their partner school now had maths graduates teaching physics and a new range of language options.  But he had no doubt that he should not be in receipt of charitable status and tax relief. 

Which is why one of the few components of Theresa May’s school reforms I can support is the Prime Minister’s determination to introduce ‘stronger, more demanding public benefit tests for independent schools.’ But the reforms which they are consulting on are ill thought through and illiberal.  There is a smart way and a stupid way to promote richer and deeper collaboration between the fee-paying and state sector.