Peter Hitchens: You stole my idea, Mrs May… and I’ve plenty more for you

It’s not every day that a Prime Minister steals a soundbite from me, and I’m pleased that she has done. What’s more, she is welcome to use it again, and I have plenty more where that came from.

She rightly swatted away narrow-minded enemies of grammar schools, saying: ‘We already have selection in our school system – and it is selection by house price, selection by wealth.’
I’ve been making this exact point for many years, as part of a lonely campaign to restore our lost grammar schools. When I started in the 1990s I was told it was a lost cause. Nobody’s saying that now. It’s winning because it’s right, just and wise.

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According to the Sutton Trust, 7,000 children a year who were in the top ten per cent nationally at age 11 were not in the top 25 per cent at GCSE five years later. These youngsters are drawn disproportionately from the white working class.’

Read the full article here.