Why did he do it?

While David Cameron was at a Basildon comprehensive on Monday announcing that the Conservative party no longer believes in selective education, my ten-year-old son was sitting the 11-plus at a private school in Suffolk. There are no grammar schools left in Suffolk, as it happens, nor in Cambridgeshire, nor in Norfolk: my son’s 11-plus papers had been sent up from Kent. But if it comes to moving the family 100 miles so that my son can enjoy the grammar-school education that I did, that is exactly what I will do. The alternative is to stay put and spend up to £13,000 a year on private education.

Fortunately, I am in a position to be able to afford that, though I resent having to pay for my children’s education twice — once through my taxes and again through school fees. For most parents of bright children, needless to say, the choice does not arise: they cannot afford £13,000 per child per year, nor is it practical for them to move into the catchment area of a grammar school.