Tim Montgomerie: Smarter grammar schools can be fair to all

If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to destroy every f***ing grammar school in England. And Wales. And Northern Ireland.” The authenticity of the quotation, attributed to Tony Crosland by his wife Susan, is contested but there is no doubting the determination that the socialist intellectual and Labour politician brought to his goal of eliminating the nation’s grammar schools. Only 164 remain today, compared with more than 1,200 beacons of academic excellence that predated Mr Crosland’s ruinous reign.

If they weren’t so mindful of their public relations, the likes of Eton, Winchester and Harrow might well have erected statues of the former education secretary in recognition of his unintended services to the sector from which he emerged too clever by half. Because today, without a thousand grammar schools competing with them, fee-paying schools such as Mr Crosland’s alma mater, Highgate, dominate the top echelons of British society. The Sutton Trust records that more than 70 per cent of top judges and military officers, 61 per cent of leading doctors and over half of prominent print journalists were privately educated.

We could, as many on the left would no doubt relish, attempt to correct this by abolishing private education. We could order the wealthy to stop spending their money on their children and become more hedonistic — devoting their riches to fine wines, bigger houses and yachts. As well as being totalitarian, such a prohibition would only repeat the error made by Mr Crosland. We would destroy another successful part of British education, which is so important to national competitiveness, while doing nothing to make other parts of the system better.

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