The Real "Problem" With "Faith Schools"

Look at the list of Honorary Associates of the National Secular Society. Polly Toynbee's name is on it. And it is clearly the most establishmentarian organisation in the English-speaking world, which is quite a feat. No doubt it is therefore also one of the richest voluntary bodies in Britain. Again, that is no mean achievement.

Such people, including Toynbee, look at the Catholic school system and see their own worst nightmare. Catholic congregations are now replete with first and second-generation university graduates whose parents have never paid a school fee in their lives. What is more, the Catholic community is concentrated in Scotland, the North, the Midlands, and the working-class parts of London.

Yet from such redoubts, previously treated as if they were on the moon by Everyone Who Matters, these jumped-up oiks have lately had the audacity to exercise political influence in accordance with the Catholic Church's pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker and anti-war principles. And they have repeatedly done so (as they surely would again) precisely to defend the very institutions that produced them in the first place. Yet, on top of everything else, those institutions have a higher than average ethnic mix, and a long history both of educating and of employing people with Irish surnames.

Where will it all end?

And how many secular schools are there in the (tax-exempt, and therefore heavily publicly subsidised) private sector favoured by Polly Toynbee as a parent?