IN CHOOSING, in defiance of party policy, to send her son to a selective grammar school, Labour's health spokesman Harriet Harman is only doing what is right and proper as a parent.

She is seeking the best education for her child.

But, as a politician, she errs and is rightly branded a hypocrite.

For, as a member of the Shadow Cabinet, she remains wedded to a party line that would deprive thousands of others of that same choice.

For, officially, Labour is opposed to selective schools.

However, for an excuse, Ms Harman can reach for precedent - and the example of the party's leader, Tony Blair, who decided to send his son, Euan, to a grant-maintained school at a time when Labour was opposed to opted-out schools. But, again, if the deciding factor then was what is best for the child, voters might well ask why Labour clings to an ideology that arrogantly assumes that, for all other parents, it, not they, knows what's best for their children - namely, non-selective education.

That this belief is not shared by the electorate is displayed with embarrassing timeliness in a Harris poll published today which shows that most people favour a return to grammar schools.

Labour, if it wants to succeed on the vital education front, had better start listening and begin ditching the dogma.

It might well be high-minded to deny the "elitist" selection of some children in the name of improved standards for all of them.

But, as the voters have evidently decided, that theory - put into practice as the comprehensive education system - has singularly failed to deliver.

Evidently, Labour politicians can share this belief as individuals, but deny it on the platform.

Such selective thinking reeks of cant.

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