WE NEED ELITISM IN EDUCATION
ATTACK: Ed Balls described grammar schools as "elitist"
By Neil Hamilton
IT’S hard to imagine but, one year ago, “Dave” Cameron was in trouble. He dug a deep hole for himself over grammar schools.
Remember the bizarre spectacle of an old Etonian surrounded by old Etonians playing down the immense contribution made by grammar schools to education? Not a brilliant strategy, declaring war on the legions of Tories, like myself, who went to one.
Cameron effectively lost that battle and learned you don’t win elections by insulting your supporters. Since last autumn, he has said very little of substance about anything and left it to Gordon Broon to deliver a Tory election victory. The strategy seems to be working.
Last week, Ed Balls, also did his bit to ensure Cameron becomes PM in two years’ time. Balls, who bears a ridiculous job title translated as Education Secretary, attacked grammar schools as “elitist” and complained they make less academic children feel a failure.
Logically, egalitarians like Balls cannot be satisfied unless everyone is a “failure”. Not everyone can succeed in life but, with a little help from the Government, they can achieve failure. Sadly, that is what Government education policy has been doing under all parties for many years.
I grew up in the mining valleys of South Wales and our grammar schools were a springboard to success for children with ability and ambition. It was a criminal act of folly to destroy them, substituting larger and generally inferior comprehensives. Even Margaret Thatcher, as Education Secretary in the Seventies, continued the devastation of grammars.
That policy has blighted the hopes of generations of children. It is a disgrace that, after 10 years of schooling, we turn out vast numbers of school leavers who are semi-literate and wholly innumerate. The monument to 40 years of egalitarian educational twaddle is the current Jade Goody generation.
Balls’s father Michael was a left-wing academic at the University of East Anglia (or East Angular in Jade Goody-speak). He was a leader of Antony Crosland’s manic campaign to destroy grammars in the Seventies.
Naturally, he did not send Ed to a grammar school but he knew better than to opt for a comprehensive. Ed was sent to fee-paying Nottingham High School, a first-class example of private-sector elitism. It has served him well in later life. From the scale of his “expenses”, it taught him how to count. Like so many socialist hypocrites, Balls Snr opted out of the dud system he imposed on the masses.
Secondary modern schools were the Cinderellas of the old system. More money should have been spent on them but the solution to the problems of bad schools is not to destroy the best, it is to improve the worst.
Comprehensivisation wasn’t the answer. We need more elitism, not less. Poverty of ambition is a curse and Balls encourages youngsters to look at the ground, not at the stars.
Too many schools perform poorly and waste taxpayers’ money. Bureaucrats create too much red tape. Examination results are increasingly suspect. Each year Balls trumpets new records of achievement, like Soviet Commissars who announced record production of pig iron, while our Soviet-style education system fails too many children.
We need the grammar schools’ elitism but we are unlikely to get it without making State schools independent. In the 1979 election, I was the only Conservative candidate advocating education vouchers for all. Make schools independent, give parents the purchasing power and replace State control with freedom to choose.
Video 
ELITISM JUST 'AINT SNOBBISHNESS.
03.07.08, 8:24pm
Ed Balls was born the same way as I. I had a mommy and a daddy and I was sent off to a good school. There any resemblance between us ends. I am normal. I know that there are massive differences between people, between the sexes, between races, between dogs and cats and frying pans. Ca la vie. If you want the best results from any organisation you put the brightest and best in charge, male or female. If someone shows flair or genius, you encourage them, nurture their talents in whatever excites their interests. The future of our country, it's status in the world depends on the qualities of it's leaders of industry and it's political shrewdness. One size fits all is crap based on jealousy and pettiness. Our grammer schools were once the envy of all countries in the world. I remember the dignity and pride, the discipline and the depth, the humour and the patience - the sheer quality. Caps and gowns and respect, gone now. Replaced by scruffy left wing morons of both sexes, dressed like bohemian drop outs. The cancer of left wing idiots has done more harm than anyone today seems to understand. I have begun to pity the disunited kingdom.
• Posted by: bluenote • Report Comment
NH HAS SAID IT ALL
29.06.08, 8:15pm
What could be added to this article ?
Neil Hamilton has said it all.
Except one thing :
Ed Balls went to the same Oxford college as me - and I am deeply ashamed.
• Posted by: peterwest • Report Comment
To view all 'Have Your Say' comments, click this button...