How education can give the liberal élite a little faith

YOUR story about the Milibands (David and Louise) spurning their local school in favour of a top-performing
C of E school (January 21) illustrates the unseemly scramble for places at Camden’s faith schools.
The school the Milibands have chosen is a prime example of this. Every year, parents of children approaching school age start thronging to the church associated with this school in the hope of securing a place.
Churches linked to good faith schools are complicit with the annual ritual of new families suddenly becoming church-goers. It means more bums on pews after all.
Yet the parish priest and chair of governors of this school was quoted in a national newspaper which followed up your story as saying he had never heard of parents joining a church to get into a school. This extraordinary statement would suggest he’s far more naive about playing the system than some parents are!
Perhaps he should ask himself why his church seems so popular with the liberal élite of Camden, despite its socially conservative, anti-women priest, outlook. There may not be any rule-breaking involved in this annual scramble, but in my view it’s morally suspect and hardly fosters the integrity and honesty that faith schools should be promoting.
N GILSON, Brecknock Road N7