GRAMMAR SCHOOL’S OUT FOR TORIES

23-05-2007

If Margaret Thatcher was the milk-bottle snatcher, is David Cameron the Grammar Hammer? His opposition to schools which cream off the most academically gifted seems like a bold move for a Tory, but Mick Temple sees it as another sign of a lookey-likey political culture.

This week we've received a clear indication that, albeit perhaps temporarily, we are living in a 'post-ideological age'. David Cameron's abandonment of his party's long-term commitment to grammar schools has been hailed as the Conservatives' Clause Four moment.

Never mind that, like Old Labour's lukewarm attachment to common ownership, 18 years of Conservative rule failed to reintroduce national selection. Not even the most famous grammar school girl of the 20th century saw fit to tackle educational inequality by bringing back grammar schools.

But something more fundamental has happened. This is a key moment in British politics, perhaps the first substantial evidence that the real revolution

started by Blair - the movement away from decisions driven largely by ideology and towards 'output politics' - has been taken up by his opponents.

From this perspective, what matters is not adherence to an ideological framework or mode of delivery such as nationalisation or the market. What matters is what will deliver the preferred outcome or, perhaps more cynically, what will sell to an electorate whose traditional party loyalties have been substantially weakened over the last few decades.

The Conservatives are endorsing Blair's idea of flagship academy schools, along with the current comprehensive system, as the best way of improving educational opportunities for all children.

Well, not their own children, obviously.

With the majority of Cameron's shadow cabinet having been public school educated - and Dave has appointed six of his Old Etonian mates to senior positions - I'm pretty sure we won't see their offspring down at the local comp.

Of course, Tory MPs we've never heard of have threatened to resign from positions we never knew they held in the first place; step forward Graham Brady, the party's Europe spokesman, a former grammar schoolboy and proud of it.

But to return to my point. You really can't get the proverbial fag-paper between the three main political parties and their policy positions anymore. It may be that lack of ideological difference, the lack of choice in effect, which is generating support for alternative parties like the Greens, UKIP and the BNP.

At least it's clear what they stand for.

The problem of our big three parties is that they are all afraid to push 'unpopular' or radical ideas in areas the public feel strongly about. And national politics has become increasingly about image and voter appeal at the very time that potentially unpopular solutions for our many societal problems - including crime, health, drugs and social integration - need serious consideration.

Is Cameron right to say there would be no more grammar schools under the Tories? Leave a comment on our Message Board.