Where I live, social mobility is a dead duck

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Rich and poor pupils mingle in the playground. Boris Johnson sent his children there, as did the manager of Coldplay, who offered a private performance by Chris Martin as a prize in the school's charity auction. The winning bid came in at £5,000, and it is fair to guess it was not made by one of the single mothers from our nearby council estates. The children may be in the same school but they live in different worlds.

Upper-middle-class parents hire tutors to get theirs through the exams of private schools or the few remaining state grammars. Everyone who can afford to play the system does, including our local Labour MP, who somehow managed to divert her children to a selective school in Potters Bar.Meanwhile the poor, the working class and the lower-middle-class are stuck with inner-London's dismal secondary schools. These parents never say that their children will enjoy a life-enhancing education and go on to a professional career, and I do not contradict them.

Suppose, against all odds, a working-class boy or girl were to receive an education in Islington to match that of the upper-middle-class children they played with at primary school. They would then have to go to university and burden themselves with debt. Even after that they would still not find a paid professional job. They would have to become an "intern" on "work experience", a refined version of slavery. I cannot see how graduates without mummy and daddy's subsidies behind them can afford to play this game.

If Milburn wants to change Britain, he must challenge a school system that goes out of its way to stop bright children from modest backgrounds enjoying the advantages of the children of the professional classes. He must instead back a system that selects the best, and isn't ashamed to do so, in order that they get the same kind of education the elite enjoys. In doing so, he will face opposition from the teaching unions and Labour MPs. But unless he does challenge the present status quo, nothing will change.