On the face of it, if you want to decide how to vote next week as a result of education policies, it’s a simple choice: do you want breakfast or lunch?
The Conservatives want to provide a breakfast for every primary school child, paying for it by scrapping free lunches for all five to seven-year-olds. Only the poorest children will still receive them.
Labour, on the other hand, want to extend free lunches to every primary school pupil. In addition, they will insist that no infant school child is taught in a class of more than 30 (restoring some of the lost ground since a similar pledge in 1997 came to fruition).
A couple of thoughts on this, then.
The Conservatives are right in thinking that a breakfast could be more important than a lunch for giving a child enough nourishment to learn through the school day. This is obvious, as most primary school lessons take place in the morning.
Unfortunately, though, they have not done their homework on the proposal. They have not factored into the equation the cost of hiring staff to come in and serve the breakfasts at 7.30am - presumably, they think well-heeled midday supervisors will come in and do it for free. And as for supervision by teachers: well, presumably they think that since they have 13 weeks of holiday a year, they should be prepared to start work earlier.
As a result, the savings made by scrapping school lunches are unlikely to be enough to offset the current cut in per pupil funding.
Making a meal of it
Labour, on the other hand, have costed their proposal, but you have to question whether - at a time when school budgets are facing such austere times - it is right to give so much priority to introducing a universal benefit which will subsidise the wealthier middle classes.
For me, there is no contest.
The proposal would routinely reduce the standard of education on offer to the three-quarters of our children who will then be taught in schools from which high-flying academic pupils have been removed. Remember, super-selective Kent has often been the authority in the country with the highest percentage of failing schools, according to Ofsted.
I’m not going saying simply vote Labour as a result of this policy. The Greens and the Liberal Democrats have as healthy a track record on opposing selection as Labour on this issue.
Happily, Comprehensive Future, the group which campaigns for all in schools, has produced a hit list of half a dozen or so marginal constituencies in fully comprehensive areas where selection could be an important issue.
They include York Central, Leicester West, Brighton Pavilion, Hove and Coventry South - where the incumbent Labour MP has a healthy record of opposing selection.
A choice selection
The waters are a bit muddier in Bath, where the Conservative candidate has spoken out against Theresa May’s selection proposals in the past - and the main challenger is a Liberal Democrat whose views were unknown at the time the election was called (although the party, obviously, is against the idea.)
In Brighton Pavilion, Green MP Caroline Lucas has as good a record on opposing selection as any in the country. In Hove, the sitting Labour MP is an opponent of selection. The issue could also decide the way the Conservative-held Brighton Kemptown seat goes at the election, as well as Thurrock, where the successful Conservative candidate was only 1,000 votes ahead of the third-placed UKIP candidate, with Labour squeezed in between them.
All I want to say is - get cracking, find out where your local candidates stand on the issue and vote accordingly to stop this pernicious policy coming into effect.
Richard Garner was education editor of The Independent for 12 years, and previously news editor of Tes. He has been writing about education for more than three decades.
To read more columns by Richard, view his back catalogue.
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