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Ed Balls, the class warrior who despises educational excellence (Apart from his own privileged background)
Last updated at 23:55 14 March 2008

One of the most enduring myths about the Labour Party is that, when in government, it promotes the interests of poorer and less advantaged people.

This is manifestly not true, as even a cursory study of recent British history shows.

Only two governments since World War II have generated any significant social mobility, and neither of them was associated with Labour.

During the 1950s, a self-confident Conservative government strived to foster individual aspiration and achievement.

Although the Tories lost the 1964 General Election, they had created an economy in which millions of working class people, for the first time in British history, had begun to enjoy a genuine share in national prosperity.

The second period of empowerment of the poor came in the 1980s. The magnificent government of Margaret Thatcher ? even bitter Left-wing critics such as Gordon Brown are now, at last, beginning to recognise her greatness ? liberated millions of ordinary people's lives from being suffocated by the State or restricted by the power of the trade unions.

Unfounded allegations: Children's Secretary Ed Balls

The result was an astonishing burst of national dynamism, which lasted long after Thatcher departed from the stage and is only now finally grinding to a halt.

Labour governments, by contrast, always promote economic and social ossification. This was particularly so during the desperate Wilson and Callaghan years in the 1960s and 1970s.

The most enduring legacy of this malign period was the destruction of the country's grammar schools.

These superlative Victorian-inspired institutions offered a route to success for countless clever working-class children.

However, they were anathema to the Labour Party ? even though, ironically, many MPs themselves had benefited from this unique form of education. For the truth is that the socialist mindset has a systemic preference for collective mediocrity over individual excellence.

Even some on the Left grasped this folly. I remember reading a letter to The Times from the famous Marxist historian Christopher Hill, in his capacity as Master of Balliol College at Oxford University.

It set out in anguished terms the irreversible damage that the destruction of the grammar schools was doing to the life chances of able children from working-class backgrounds.

Yet his concerns went unheeded. This was because the priority of Labour governments down the years has never been the improvement of ordinary people's lives, as they endlessly claim.

Instead, their prime interest is in uniformity, state control and centralisation.

This was why almost the first act of Tony Blair's government was the reversal of well-meaning (though imperfectly realised) Tory legislation to give independence to local schools.

Blair, to his credit, recognised the enormity of his error during the second half of his term of office and desperately sought to give back to schools the freedoms (for example, through the introduction of city academies, which are run by their own boards).

These reforms could only go so far, however, because they were opposed by Gordon Brown at the Treasury.

The then-Chancellor had never made any secret of his instinctive hatred of what he considers educational "privilege".

Who can forget how he deliberately ? and disgracefully ? set out to challenge the procedures which governed the selection of students for Oxford University ? most famously over the admission tutors' decision to reject Laura Spence, a comprehensive pupil from Tyneside.

Now that Gordon Brown is Prime Minister, the feeble and belated Blairite attempt to liberate schools from state control has been halted.

In a fateful move, Brown placed his most trusted henchman, Ed Balls, in charge of education.

Balls is an unreconstructed class warrior. Like many such zealots, he comes from an extremely privileged background.

His zoologist father, Michael Balls, is an emeritus professor at Nottingham University who sent his son to Nottingham High, an outstanding independent school, from where he went to Oxford and Harvard.

In common with a long tradition of Labour education secretaries, Balls is determined that generations of children who follow him will not be allowed to benefit from the advantages that he once enjoyed.

He says he is driven by the need to raise education standards, but like Gordon Brown, he is implacably opposed to those schools and educational institutions which have the independent culture and special ethos which have always been an essential part of academic excellence.

He seems to reserve special venom for schools which, although selection is not allowed, try to introduce elements of dialogue with the parents of potential pupils.

It is notable that Balls's allies have singled out for opprobrium what they label "pushy" parents ? those people who are prepared to make major sacrifices and put great effort into finding the best school available for their children.

This anti-excellence agenda means that the Education Secretary is determined to remove the vestigial ability of schools to select their own pupils and place the power, instead, with government or local authorities.

At heart, Balls does not regard education as an end in itself. Instead, he sees it as an important branch of social engineering ? a belief which engages him much more deeply.

Significantly, he renamed the Department of Education as the "Department for Children, Schools and Families" when he was appointed last summer.

This sent out a powerful signal that the new minister's focus was no longer education but a range of so-called "core issues" which include child poverty and child welfare.

As balls set out to attack outstanding and long-established schools as part of his "core issues" mission, he found the perfect instrument in the new Admissions Code.

This was originally designed to help increase the chances of children getting their first-choice school and also to tackle "back-door selection".

Its powers are set out in a jargon-filled 108-page document and it is administered by a Schools Adjudicator (most significantly, the present incumbent is a former civil servant who used to work as Private Secretary to Shirley Williams, the Labour Cabinet minister who destroyed the grammar schools).

Above all, the code gives the State unprecedented powers to interfere in the independence of local schools.

Last week, Balls took unscrupulous advantage of his authority by claiming that a "significant minority" of schools demand cash payments ? including standing orders of several hundred pounds a term ? from prospective parents.

Of course, this would be a genuinely serious abuse if true. However, Ed Balls has not provided a shred of evidence for his irresponsible claims.

Indeed, he was later forced to admit that his accusations were based purely on "unverified desk research".

Meanwhile, those local authorities which were "named and shamed" have denied that they demand money for places.

Among those accused were a small number of Jewish schools in the North London borough of Barnet which ask prospective parents to contribute a sum (typically £50) towards their special religious teaching and security needs.

Moreover, there is no evidence of any link between decisions on admissions and these minor payments.

Balls has also made similar unsubstantiated claims about Catholic schools in the Manchester area.

These allegations ? that their heads are betraying the teachings of Christ and excluding pupils from deprived backgrounds ? have been swiftly repudiated by the Bishop of Lancaster, the Rt Rev Patrick O'Donoghue.

It is easy to see what Ed Balls is up to. He is conducting a war against those schools which insist on maintaining their own admissions procedures in the face of statist pressure for a bland uniformity.

But unless the Children's Secretary can prove his disgraceful allegations, he should apologise to all those conscientious and decent head teachers he has insulted.

Lets assume you close grammar schools, do you accept a recent report stating intelligence is linked with the social class of your family?

If so, surely you will still get middle class dominating the top sets, lower class dominating the bottom sets and you will still have social immobility.

So what is the point in getting rid of grammar schools when you'll have the same result?

People who assume all grammar school kids had tutors for the 11+ are making a horrible generalisation. As are those who assume that they are only for the middle/upper classes, or found in posher areas.

I had practice papers. Hardly the hardest things to get hold of.

Are you going to have the same result? We know what some grammar schools have done in a few LEAs. Wherever there is selection, the comprehensive schools in those areas are more likely to fail. If you were to abolish the grammars, there would be less failure in these schools.

I agree Billydisco, although I wouldn't say necessarily that the lives of those who have the ability to become doctors/engineers etc are necessarily 'worth' more than those of would-be hairdressers, scaffolders etc.

All have a place in society, which is why there is a place both for grammars and for vocationally-oriented comprehensives which are both the rght thing for certain people.