State education is for other people’s children, isn’t it?

Published: 16 July, 2010

• SO David Cameron is “terrified” of sending his children to a state secondary school in Westminster.

If he is so concerned about secondary schools in Westminster why doesn’t he ask Westminster’s Conservative leader Colin Barrow what the Conservatives have been doing with the millions of pounds poured into secondary education by the Labour government over the past 13 years.

And if he doesn’t get a sensible answer from Cllr Barrow, he should ask former Conservative education secretary Kenneth Baker why he scrapped the Inner London Education Authority 30 years ago just because this high-achieving and innovative body had the temerity to be controlled by Labour for many years.

The destruction of the ILEA was the root cause of the problems suffered by schools like Pimlico and North Westminster over the following decade and more.

Too many Conservatives do not believe in state secondary education because their first instinct is to send their children to private schools.

For too many Conservatives, state secondary schools are for “other people’s children”.

Mr Cameron has shown this week that he is one of them, too.

So much for the “new politics”.

CLLR PAUL DIMOLDENBERG
Leader of the Labour Group