Bill Carmichael: Class distinctions in our schools

But you can bet your last penny that a proven and powerful tool for tackling such social evils will never get a mention – grammar schools. Don't take my word for it – instead, have a look at research commissioned by the respected Sutton Trust and released this week.

The World Apart report, from the Centre for Education and Employment research at the University of Buckingham, found that, compared with socially exclusive comprehensive schools, grammar schools are beacons of egalitarianism.

The researchers discovered that in the top 164 comprehensives, just 9.2 per cent of pupils came from "income-deprived" homes, compared with

13.5 per cent in grammar schools.

Of the 100 most socially selective schools in the country, 91 were comprehensives, eight grammar schools and one was a secondary modern.

Over the last 50 years, the ideologues of the left have run our education system as a giant experiment in social engineering – with catastrophic results for our country in terms of social mobility.

Grammar schools have been ceaselessly vilified by politicians of all parties as elitist and their selection criteria denounced as unfair and divisive.

But what is becoming increasingly clear is that a meritocratic system of selection by ability was good for the poor, simply because it opened a tiny opportunity for bright children from modest backgrounds to obtain a decent education.

By contrast, in today's Britain, as the Sutton report demonstrates, we have replaced selection by ability with selection by mortgage – and poor children, no matter how clever, are effectively shut out.

The chances of a talented child born today in a sink estate attending a good school and graduating from a top university, are infinitesimally small.

This wasn't always the case. Thanks to the grammar schools, 50 years ago the proportion of graduates at our top universities who were educated in the state system was far higher than it is today. For example, today, Oxford takes only 55 per cent of its pupils from the state sector, compared with 62 per cent in 1969.

Social mobility has gone backwards, and this has serious implications for our economy and for social cohesion.

Labour and the Lib Dems both hate grammar schools and would destroy all of them tomorrow if they thought they could get away with it.

But bafflingly, the Tories are equally hostile. Not so long ago, David Cameron described supporters of grammar schools as "delusional" and David Willetts slammed them for "entrenching privilege". (Incidentally, Willetts educates his own children at highly selective, private schools – so no chance of "entrenching privilege" there then!)

Perhaps what is good for the children of politicians could be good enough for the rest of us? And maybe a fair and meritocratic education system would lead to a happier and more equal society?

Political gibberish

Launching Labour's manifesto earlier this week Gordon Brown said: "We are in the future business, and under my leadership we will always be in the future business."

Just read that quote again and see if you can discern any possible meaning.

On second thoughts, don't bother. I've read it 20 times and I can confirm it is unmitigated gibberish.

What's the "future business" when it is at home? Is it the same as the future? Presumably not.

It is an empty, vacuous, meaningless political slogan devoid of any substance whatsoever.

There is a lot of it about. The standard of political debate by party leaders is abysmal. No matter – just another three weeks to go!