Labour's never-ending obsession with independent schools

Even when the data is misleading the most important thing is the critical noise it creates.

I wrote the following article for the UK magazine The Critic. I wrote in response to a new report, published by University College London, on the apparent inequities built into bursaries awarded by independent schools. The report, though, is fundamentally flawed, and the fact that its principal author is a writer and academic who has written extensively about independent schools being ‘engines of privilege’ only adds to the sense that this was never going to be an objective study of an important topic. Here is the first paragraph of the piece, and the rest is, I think, available to read online if you follow the link.

The Labour Party’s policies on education have always been distorted by its obsession with independent schools. There are many senior figures, including the Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, who loathe the sector and would abolish it tomorrow if they could. They simply cannot see the benefits such schools — many of which are genuinely world-class by any objective measure — bring to British society. For them, the sector is Eton, all entitlement and arrogance, although the reality is, of course, very different. Nuance has no place in this particular form of class envy. For those on the left there is only one acceptable school model and it is non-selective, co-educational, and paid for by the state.

Link.