There has never been any Labour Party policy to abolish private schools, and Harold Wilson used them as a parent while he was Prime Minister. However, Diane Abbott needs to be asked how she, the daughter of a welder and a nurse, could have gone to Cambridge from the state sector, but she has felt the need to send her impeccably middle-class son private in order to ensure that he has similar opportunities. What did she have then, that he does not have now? We all know the answer to that one.
Ed Miliband pledges to "save" the 50p tax rate. Leaving aside whether or not that is a good thing in itself (the super-rich just avoid tax altogether), save it from whom? When Blair gave up, John McDonnell was kept off the ballot for suggesting a fifty per cent tax on the highest incomes. How very Loony Left, and all that. Today, such a tax is Conservative Party policy and is being levied accordingly.
Speaking of John, here is the Roll of Honour: Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley), Martin Caton (Gower), Katy Clark (North Ayrshire & Arran), Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North), John Cryer (Leyton & Wanstead), Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West), Jim Dowd (Lewisham West & Penge), Frank Field (Birkenhead), Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney), Kate Hoey (Vauxhall), Ian Lavery (Wansbeck), John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington), Graeme Morrice (Livingston), Linda Riordan (Halifax), Dennis Skinner (Bolsover), Mike Wood (Batley & Spen). More than Abbott until John pulled out. And largely better. Among many other ways, Eurosceptics every one.
She is in favour of the eleven plus. Read her website: it's all there. She is also in favour of single sex schools. She believes that Oxbridge should be academically elitist, that most universities are already flexible about entry grades if they see potential in the student and that the means to prevent them from being socially elitist are to improve the schools attended by the poor, raise the poor pupils' aspirations so that they actually apply to the top universities and reinstate full grants, so that they can afford to go. It's all on her website.
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