Read my lips. Creeping selection, introduced by stealth, is now government policy. Unfortunately, I am unable to report how many of the new “specialist schools” have chosen to admit 10 per cent of their pupils on that basis since Labour was elected in 1997. For, incredibly, that statistic is not avilable, according to the extremely obliging press officer at the DFEE. By incredibly I do not mean to suggest that he was lying but that, five years ago, none of us would have believed that Labour education ministers would need to cover their tracks in such a disreputable way.

Roy Hattersley, Monday