The Yorkshire Post says: PM's grammar school lessons. May risks One Nation credentials

Yet, while Mrs May has had to scale back her desire for a new generation of such schools after losing her Commons majority, the Government is, nevertheless, making an additional £50m available to create more places.

However she does appear to be compromising her supposed One Nation policies with an approach that will benefit those select areas that have retained grammar schools – and not all other parts of the country where more needs to be done to improve attainment and enhance social mobility.

Not only has the UCL Institute of Education questioned the wisdom of this approach but Mrs May appears to have forgotten that Holton Park Girls’ Grammar School, which she attended, later became a comprehensive school and is now an academy.

She should not be too fixated with the past – education is moving with the times and she was a fully paid-up member of David Cameron’s government when it took the decision to encourage schools to become academies and operate outside of the control of LEAs.

If she’s still committed to this localism agenda, she should be encouraging education providers to work in conjunction with councils to ensure that all schools can best respond to the needs – and priorities – of the communities that they serve. If local leaders determine that grammar schools are the best approach, they should be free to pursue such a strategy. Yet there’s absolutely nothing to stop Mrs May encouraging the whole of the education establishment to follow the ethos, and excellence, of grammar schools so more students command the skills, and subjects, which will shape their careers.

However, to do this, it will require decision-making, particularly on funding and the recruitment and retention of world-leading teachers, for the longer-term – and not short-term political opportunism.