SURELY it is no bad thing to be governed by people who’ve had the best education money can buy, whether Conservative, Lib Dem or Labour?
With the abolition of most grammar schools, this is why there are so many in the cabinet and shadow cabinet who attended public schools.
Grammar schools had produced some of Labour’s upper echelons in Harold Wilson, Denis Healey and Barbara Castle, and Conservative party leaders in Margaret Thatcher, Edward Heath, John Major and Michael Howard.
In the sixties, grammar schools produced 60 per cent of Oxbridge entrants. One public school boy who didn’t like the taste of this decided to close the grammars – Anthony Crosland of the Labour party.
Then Shirley Williams (ex-Labour), Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and Michael Balls in Norfolk, father of Ed Balls, continued their demise, making sure young Ed ‘benefited’ by sending him on to private school.
PW Selwood, Ainsty Road, Wetherby.
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