There are two things I don’t like about Jeremy Corbyn: his face. The man who campaigns for peace, but then supports the murderous IRA and calls Hamas and Hezbollah “friends”. The man who supports equality for women, but then speaks at a meeting organised by the rape-apologists of the SWP. Now we have the man who opposes selective and private education, but surrounds himself with those who, like himself, have benefited from it.
When Theresa May announced that she wanted to expand Grammar Schools, Labour quickly opposed the suggestion on the grounds that it enhanced the education of some children but damaged it for many more. A wholly principled argument from the party of working class people, don’t you think? Well, yes. But…
Jeremy Corbyn himself went to an elite Grammar School, as did his son Sebastian who is now chief of staff for ex Grammar schoolboy John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor. This week Corbyn promoted ex Grammar schoolgirl Diane Abbott to shadow home secretary, the same Diane Abbott who paid for her own son to have a private education because she didn’t think her local schools were good enough.
The spin in Corbyn’s Labour Party comes from multimillionaire Seumas Milne, who went to the elite Winchester College and sent his own children to elite Grammar Schools. And the pressure group Momentum is owned by veteran Bennite Jon Lansman who, of course, went to a private school, Highgate to be precise. (The late Tony Benn also had a private education, of course, at Westminster School. This goes back a long way.) And last week Jeremy Corbyn appointed Shami Chakrabarti as his shadow attorney general.
Chakrabarti was not even a Labour Party member six months ago and given that she is 47 years of age, it seems strange that she should have climbed the greasy pole so quickly. But it isn’t strange. Our Shami was asked to compile an independent report on the antisemitism that is so rife in the Labour Party and reported back to say everything was fine. A grateful Corbyn then, by complete coincidence, gave her a peerage, she joined the Labour Party and got a nice little number in the House of Lords which Corbyn opposes. All this would be bad enough but Shami is another comrade who sends her son to a private school, in her case the elite £18k a year Dulwich College. “I have concerns about Grammar Schools,” said Shami, but presumably none at all about private schools. Or maybe she just opposes them if other people send their kids to them?
Ah, I hear the cry. Every parent does their best for their own children. If they have the money to buy a better education, then they will do it. Anyone would. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t because, unlike the current Labour leadership, I am not a hypocrite when it comes to education. Yes, yes, I know that I couldn’t have afforded to have sent my children to a private school but in any event, I am opposed to private schools full stop. The option was never mine but I would not have changed a thing.
If senior Labour figures actively send their children to private schools and actually attended themselves, certainly in relation to the former they have crossed a line. They are guilty of telling the people to do as I say but not as I do. They have enjoyed privilege and in many cases have allowed their children to enjoy it too. You simply cannot say, as a politician, that you are opposed to something but only if you are exempt from the consequences.
In the real world, the world in which we live, affluent parents have a choice with the schools to which they send their children. They are free to do that. Politicians too are free to do that but if you are a socialist MP or party official, especially from the hard left which is now propelling Labour to electoral oblivion, you either support selective and private education or you don’t.
I am not sure if there is such a thing as the liberal elite, which I believe to be a figment of the imagination of the right wing press, but there is certainly a hard left elite which appears to support educational elitism for its own people, but not for anyone else.
