Tony Blair’s decision to send his son to a grant-maintained school was “wicked”, Peter Kilfoyle, Labour’s schools spokesman, told astonished delegates to the party’s local government conference in a private session on education last week.
Mr Kilfoyle, Labour MP for Liverpool Walton, described his leader’s decision as dealing an “evil hand” to Labour’s education chief, David Blunkett. Mr Kilfoyle praised Mr Blunkett’s “tolerance and restraint” in dealing with the aftermath.
One councillor said afterwards: “If that’s how they’re prepared to talk to us ordinary mortals about it, you can imagine what it must have been like behind closed doors. The walls must have been covered with blood.”
Mr Blunkett himself sought to defuse the issue by pointing out that only 8 per cent of students and 5 per cent of schools were affected by opting out. But councillors from the Home Counties insisted it was a real issue for them because the proportion was much higher on their patches. In Kent, for example, 53 per cent of schools were grant maintained.
Councillors serving on education committees told Mr Blunkett and his team that they felt their budgets were being squeezed because of the large local proportion of GM schools. Others said the row had deflected from their positive reasons for encouraging GM schools - such as a wish to opt out of a “crazy authority like Wandsworth”.
The issue took up more than half the time available to discuss Labour’s developing education policies, which were generally welcomed by councillors. But there was general assent when a primary school teacher regretted that the emphasis on nursery, secondary and further education tended to leave out primary schools.
