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If England, according to Oscar Wilde, is the native land of the hypocrite, then the contortions achieved by former Left-wing supporters of state education in order to justify sending their kids to private schools have to be some of that land's most curious rituals. When I was a child in London my parents schooled me privately to begin with, and then when the inherited dosh ran out sent me to a state school. It was at that point that my mother began to trumpet her great belief in comprehensives. Even aged 13, I couldn't help seeing hypocrisy in this.
But over the past decade or so, I've had the opportunity to witness among my peers the reverse as, frightened that their offspring aren't going to make the grade, they've abandoned their principles and pulled out their chequebooks. On Saturday, as I did the tours of a couple of prospective fee-paying schools for my 11-year-old, I reflected bitterly on how it was I'd now made the same miserable traverse. Had I become a hypocrite, still believing in the ideal of universal state education for everyone, but in practice wanting that to be everyone else?
Some Leftiers-than-thou have claimed an exceptionalism of religion Mr & Mrs T Blair or race Ms D Abbott or special needs Ms Ruth Kelly, in order to justify going private. Others have resorted to claiming never to have been that Left-wing in the first place. After all, with the rest of Left-wing ideals so bankrupt, maybe belief in state education as an engine of social change was equally worthless?
Certainly, my son was not getting educated properly at his local state primary. He was spending most of his lessons reading under the edge of the desk, and at 10 was unable to write properly. He was being persistently bullied something the staff felt unable to combat effectively and as a result he had come to hate school with a vengeance. After two terms in a private school with small classes and teachers who aren't so pressured that they "teach to the test", all this has started to turn around.
Why, in such a situation, if I could possibly afford to keep him in the private sector, would I throw him back into the state? Living in Lambeth, where there's a paucity of secondary state places for boys, the options are not good; can I really be prepared to sacrifice him on the altar of my own idealism? Well, no, of course not but nor do I feel particularly like a hypocrite.
I never took the view that state education was an engine of social change that's a function of a more egalitarian economy. No, I don't feel hypocritical just angry. Angry that after more than seven fat years, London schools are in a worse state than ever, angry that those who have not must bear the brunt of it. My mother used to argue that it was essential for the middle classes to send their kids to state schools because they would then campaign actively for their betterment. Well, I've still got two kids left in the state system, and I'm not about to shut up about it.
Sir Philip the Atlantic vulture
You know you're in trouble when the vultures of shmatte come to feed on your corpse. While money was pouring out of Iceland last week, Sir Philip Green was flying in. The nabob of high street ready-mades was in talks with the Icelandic PM with a view to taking over £1 billion of the investment group Baugur's debt a move that would give him control of such illustrious names as Karen Millen, House of Fraser and Moss Bros. The ever buoyant Green sounded like a one-man band of hope when he said rhetorically: "Do I think there are some pressures in the economy? Of course there are. But if we keep frightening everybody and terrorising everybody it will feed on itself." Far better that you should feed on those foolish horn-heads, eh, Sir Phil?
Mandy returns by gravy train
So Mandy, the PM's new best and most bumptious friend, has picked up a cool million in pension entitlements after his four years of backbreaking work as EU Trade Commissioner. Quelle surprise! After all, Neil Kinnock managed to scarf the same following seven years of cleaning out the Augean stables of Euro-corruption, Herculean labour that resulted in bringing to book precisely no one. As the Eurozone premiers desperately try to co-operate in saving their and our skins from the global financial pandemic, it may be the right time to reflect on how a half-century of co-operation between European leaders has given us British taxpayers so very little, while a rogues' gallery of superannuated politicos have ended up with so very much.
Reader views (51)
Hi Will
I follow your column religiously as a socialist & a Stockwell resident.Like u i was both grammar & Uni educated. I have a 9 yr old currently at St Andrew s C of E Kay s d. This school in early years was fantastic but as Fin has been acknowledged as a brighter kid cannot help me with the next step. Although 2 years away his choice is Stockwell High or Lambeth Academy. Yet he has passed yr 6 SATs age 9 !
I am a single teacher mum earning 35 K so not on breadline but would welcome advice , is it possible to get Fin into Dulwich schools on a bursary ?
On a more personal note , last night Larkhall park shocked me ? What can we do as locals ?
Thanks Will
Debbie Taylor
Priory Grove Sch
- Debbie Taylor, Stockwell London, 28/04/2009 21:41
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It does not surprise me that Will Self has persuaded himself he is not a hypocrite. He would be self-righteous whatever he did. He wants to do the best for his child. So does everyone else, that's why private education exists. Labour abolished Grammar schools, which gave a chance to clever poorer children. Now the the less clever but richer children of people such as Will Self and Diane Abbott will claw their way ahead of more intelligent but poorer children.
- Gloria, Stony Stratford England, 19/10/2008 17:23
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You should check the facts - ALL the secondary schools in Lambeth have been judged by Ofsted. Yeah, you know, Ofsted, as "good" or "outstanding". 22 schools in Lambeth have now been judged "outstanding" by Ofsted.
- Peter Compton, London, 18/10/2008 22:16
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We took our children out of a private school, where one of them was being bullied, and put them in State school which has been much better educationally and socially.
There's good and bad in both systems. You shouldn't feel guilty about wanting to do the best for your children. Good luck with the new school.
- John S, Sawbridgeworth, Herts, 16/10/2008 20:33
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I am currently teaching in a state school in one of the most deprived boroughs in London. It is a great school, considering the community it serves. The staff work extremely hard on behalf of the kids, and also each other. But Christ - not even the head expects middle class parents to send their kids there! Those winsome little Hugos being knocked around by the big Turkish boys, all those languages, the low ability pupils and those with disabilities and learning difficulties, the raucousness in the corridors. You're not going to get much Shakespeare taught in those circumstances.
Will Self, you can't have it both ways. You make good money acting as a satirical mouthpiece for metropolitan London, lampooning the Mitsubishi driving Shire people in your fiction wherever possible. The price you pay for living in the Metropolis is that the state schools pick up all the kids from all the myriad ethnic and socio-economic groups you so valourise. Of course the schools are going to suffer - nothing to do with lack money or 'teaching to the test'. Just a fact of the modern urban jungle - it's the same in any big American city. If you want decent schools across the board, move to somewhere more culturally and economically homogenous like Sweden.
- Sirin, London, 16/10/2008 20:25
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Why are so many of you hung up with class and political preferences? I would not, for example take my car to a garage where the mechanics were drunk, incompetent and work-shy, so why would I wish to send a child to such a school, (i.e. the state school I attended in the during the eighties)? Your desires to fit in with your chosen political leanings taking precedence over your children's futures reveal you as shallow and immature. Why do you think that people such as yourselves should be the social architects of the future? I would wish to distance my self from the state as much as possible given the choice.
- Brian, Leeds, 16/10/2008 12:35
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If you think that state Primary Schools are worse than they were when you [presumably] went to them , then remember that for it's first neglectful eight years McLabour virtually ignored secondary education to 'concentrate' on [ie securing future votes from] primary schools.
Could this terribly neglectful 'desertion' of teenagers have been a significant contributary factor in innercity inter-ethnic knifecrime?
Just another thought, 'friend'.
We are all born socialists, but when we become men we put away childish things, usually to become more conservative.
Thus, in a real world, realists leave idealism to artists.
You're just a 'late developer', Will, or an artist.
And dangerously silly Idiots like Kinnock, Prescott, Blunkett, Blair, Mandelson, Millipede, Abbott, Blears, Kelly and now Balls, frighteningly, have still never really grown up.
- Dave, cumbria, 16/10/2008 10:37
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The one-dimensional left/right wing view of politics is both obsolete and unhelpful. Mr Self is a libertarian socialist who seeks to use his money how he pleases, whether it be buying heroin for himself (pre-1998) or private education for his son (ten years later).
- Austen, London, 15/10/2008 20:56
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Surely, Will, the point is, that to get proper bullying, you have to pay for it?
- Ed, Hampstead, 15/10/2008 18:29
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Who can fault anyone who does the best for their child? However, when said person drones on about their leftist beliefs and decides to send their child private, he makes a rod for his own back.Isn't this so typical of our elected representatives, perhaps you should consider becoming an MP. Socialism died in this country a long time ago. Animal Farm indeed!
- A Hilley, Essex, 15/10/2008 16:22
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I am not going to judge Mr Self. But I would ask him whether the low quality of schools in his area is in any way the result of other policies he has supported, e.g. high migration. I would then ask him to reconsider his support for these policies if he feels necessary to opt out of their consequences.
- G, Palmers Green, 15/10/2008 16:20
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Perhaps if the state was prepared to spend as much per child as the private sector does, value the teachers more, allow them to teach without bureaucratic interference and support them when little Johnny or Leroy gets violent then more middle/upper class parents would be willing to send their kids to state school.
My daughter attends what is considered a modern, well above average faith school. It is however too big so kids get 'lost' or dumped into classes with those who have learning difficulties or no interest in learning.
No Govt. minister would dream of taking on a class of 30 unruly and potentially violent teenagers hell bent on causing as much trouble as possible so why should they expect a teacher to do so for less than a third of an MP's salary?
- Adam, Harrow, UK, 15/10/2008 15:59
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Please Will Self, get over yourself. You knew this day was coming and deep down, you knew what you would be doing with your children's education . You would no sooner send your children to your local comp as you would join the tory party. You omit to mention that your local comp in Lambeth has recently been judged to be outstanding by OFSTED and that its multi-million pond facelift is nearing completion. Perhaps your refusal to send your son there has more to do with the class and race of most of the children who go there than about its educational credentials. Go on. Admit it. You want your son to be educated along side other 'nice' mainly white middle class children, just like you were. That's the real reason people like yourself opt out of state education. Wh not go the whole hog and move your family to a gated community as the next step to avoiding being part of real London.
- Liz, Lambeth, London, 15/10/2008 15:23
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My mother has always said it is the responsibility of those who can afford it to pay from their children to be privately educated, thus taking the strain off the public.
In theory she does have a point, if the only people who went to comprehensives couldn’t afford private there would be less children for the government to pay for.
However, they’d probably just close more schools and cram more children into the same big class numbers.
Nice thinking though mum.
- Fiona, London, 15/10/2008 15:22
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Quite all right dear Wiil Self. If other lefties put their kids in private schools, they're hypocrites. If you're the one to do so it's rather noble. You're simply refusing to sacrifice your child on the altar of your principles. I'm happy to say I'm a working class immigrant who's had the benefit of attending good schools and I've never been much hampered by the principles of comfortable left-leaning intellectuals. All the very best, Mara
- Mara, Highgate, England, 15/10/2008 15:04
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In the words of Oscar Wilde the man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and no one would expect anyone with 'self' written on their passport to act in any other way than you have.
What makes me REALLY laugh, though, is the idea of your Aberdonian pitbull columnist of a wife, Deborah - a Stalinist harridan of the first order when I met her in the late 80s - completing her dismal transition to pariah, with what was to her previous 'self' a disgraceful, shameful sell-out. Oh, you so deserve each other. How's the 4x4 gas-guzzler, by the way, and unoccupied second home abroad? I know, you SIMPLY couldn't stop yourselves.
- Drinkhard Leftie, North London, 15/10/2008 13:07
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Typical champagne socialist, much like the Animal Farm pigs. They really don't like the great unwashed, the poor and most of the working class. With too much money for their own good they are still jealous of the success of others.
- Colin, brightlingsea, England, 15/10/2008 11:52
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If the state schools in your area are poor, and you can afford it, I think most people would do the same. I don't see why it has to be justified.
Until state schools are as good as private, many people who can, will opt for private, because on the whole, they offer far better teaching and creativity. If teachers were paid as much , say , as GP's for instance (as I think they are in some other European countries) and they were respected, given more autonomy about how and what to teach, I'm sure it would attract more people, become a desirable job and have a knock on effect. The teachers I know are disenchanted and weary. There is no room for anything which is outside the box.It is all about targets and testing. Private schools are able to teach more creatively.
Recently, I have met four state teachers (including two heads) who send their children to private school. Surely that says more about it than anything.
If Will Self's child was sick, and the national health service couldn't offer what private could, and he could pay, doubt it would arouse so much as a blink.
It is unfair, and all children should have good educational oportunities; nothing raises hackles so much as this inequality.
- Jack Russell, York N Yorkshire, 15/10/2008 11:51
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Will. You are only one of the following:
1. Die Hard Leftie? Hilarious. Think not.. Plastic Leftie p'raps.
2. Decent Parent who wants the best for his children - Yes. 100%. Totally.
- Elaine P, London, 15/10/2008 11:09
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Perhaps Mr Self could have helped his son's education and saved himself a lot of money into the bargain by simply moving to a less 'diverse' and 'vibrant' part of town?
- Stan Athel, London, England, 15/10/2008 09:48
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Like all leftwingers, you speak with a forked-tongue. It is so urbane to tell the proletariat what is best for them but of course the organ-grinders do the opposite. Socialism is an incurable disease.
- Charlie George, ilford england, 14/10/2008 23:05
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I know the primary school your son went to in Clapham. A close friend's children go there. It is not a bad school, and has no worse a bullying problem than any other — state or private. And if you really were unhappy with the education your son was getting at that school, why not visit other state schools? A great many children — most of the population in fact — go to state schools and do learn to write, and aren't bullied. Why assume that because he was having a bad experience at one school, he would therefore have a bad experience at any other state school?
I think you're looking for excuses because you and your wife have made a big noise in the past about supporting state schools and are now embarrassed to admit that you want to buy your son the advantages — mainly social rather than educational — of a private education. You move in an upper middle class circle, where private education is the norm, and so you lost your nerve. This happens all the time to people who have money — however, in your case it is particulary destructive precisely because both you and your wife have written so often in defence of state schools in the past. Your decision is no longer simply a personal one, but will weaken the state system you say you supported. Much better if you had simply said, "You know what, I really want my child to go to Oxbridge, and so have decided to give him a leg up".
I don't know how you can call yourself a leftie, or why you are so keen to.
- Colin Campbell, London, 14/10/2008 22:03
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Will, the Labour ideal of a comprehensive of all equal was killed by labour. They want to make state schools dependencies. They want votes. They are deceiving hypocrites. Sending their own children to special schools with private tuition, and leaving state education in chaos. There is no discipline and learning. It sounds good to call it 'fair'. They can claim your vote.
Bravely you paint the story of your own child. That school is a disgrace. It is 'Not Fair'. Schools are places to learn, not social engineering hothouses.
Labour avoid any learning that needs intelligence or focus, as that may lose a vote. Easier to allow a pupil to ruin learning for 40 others, than risk losing votes.
In their twisted thinking if a child becomes independent and starts learning then the child may not need to depend on the state. Then Labour is lost? No clients.
Labour needs to create children depending on the state.
They need the State to control and decide everything, to provide in all areas, family means tested, food, home, school, work, welfare, health. Remove responsibility from those around a child. Let a child be difficult, then need state loose intervention. Then the State has a role. More care, more government, control by State officials.
5 million unemployed or on disability. 5 million state employees. 3 in every 5 are State dependent. Frank Field rails aginst State created dependency. Think.
- Honest John, London, 14/10/2008 22:01
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Well clearly you are not a die hard lefty. If you were you would have fought harder to improve the school where your son is at or looked at other alternative local schools.
- Bob, London, 14/10/2008 21:52
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Is there any lefty anywhere who is not a total hypocrite.
- John ., Wimbledon.England, 14/10/2008 20:57
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Hypocrisy and double standards rules eh Willy boy.
Being preached to by rich socialist like you, really sticks in the back of my throat.
At least we on the right are honest about our politics.
- Frank, Home Counties, England, 14/10/2008 19:20
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My sons goes to a state primary school where the head's offspring attends a private school instead. There are no male teachers; competition is actively discouraged; the whole environment is so feminine to the detriment of boys. Those who can afford it now supplement their children's education with extra tuition.
- Sade, London, 14/10/2008 19:14
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Eli Robinson, I think that you will find that Mr Self is of the jewish persuasion and therefore no anti-semite.
- Ian Abrahams, Borehamwood, Herts, 14/10/2008 18:57
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I went through the same internal debate in the 1990s – and won hands-down. My son attended Colfe's,in southeast London, where he received a decent, but unexceptional education at a cost to me (then) of some £50,000. It was more than I could reasonably afford, but it was worth it and I would do it again. The crime is that I should have had to make the choice.
One other thing: the punctuation in the online version of your piece is sporadically a mess. I'm guessing that this is not your fault. After all, you had a good education.
- Walter Ellis, New York USA, 14/10/2008 18:36
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Lucky you, Will, to be left-wing and still have enough surplus cash to send your child to a fee-paying school. Those of us lefties, committed to the best education for our kids, but on ordinary wages, have to lump it and make the most of free education. Thank God for it.
- Susie, Essex, 14/10/2008 17:06
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Mr. Self, you are a leftie when it suits and as a means of making money. But you spend it like a Tory.
But, I will compliment you on doing the right thing for your child. He is now being educated by teachers, not by indoctrinated trade unionists.
- Victor, Swanley, England, 14/10/2008 16:49
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Grammar schools elitist or scrapped to stop the working class becoming the elite?
- Dave, London, 14/10/2008 16:33
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I went to a comprehensive state school which I hated for its worship of mediocrity, its diffidence towards academic success and its feminised non-competitive culture. All of my teachers sent their own children to private schools. I have never met a proponent of state schools for whom their own local comprehensive is good enough for their children. Pro-comprehensive people always put their OWN children in private schools! Mixed-ability teaching betrays both the academic AND the non-academic, and is an affront to learning. The one-size-fits-all mentality of the comp is a form of institutional child abuse. I don't blame this guy for using private education as long as he doesn't prescribe comprehensive schooling for everyone else.
- Neil, London UK, 14/10/2008 16:25
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Like many on the so-called right, you've adopted a policy because it works, and I applaud you for it. Pragmatism not ideology is surely sensible. The trick is to make decent education available to all, not the few and I'm sure the right way to do that is remove the dead hand of bureaucracy from as many schools as possible. That's why I support a voucher system - which can also be a great leveller. If vouchers were redeemable at any school where, say, 30% or more of the pupils paid no more than the voucher value, it would compel the great public schools to open their doors to all comers. The other pupils would have to make up any shortfall. It might even be cheaper for the taxpayer, even allowing for the benefit to some who now pay for all of their children's education, given that state and private day school costs are almost identical. This is too radical for the Tories but maybe you could champion it!
- Alfred T Mahan, New Forest, 14/10/2008 16:14
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Anybody who says that they are not a hypocrite - is a hypocrite.
- J. Warwick, Tomatin, Scotland., 14/10/2008 15:41
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Well Will, at least you are honest about it. One of the reasons that I abhor NuLabour and leftish politicians is because of their lies and hypocrisy with their childrens education. Abbot, Harman, Kelly to name but a few together with loads of others all send their children to private schools and then play the " Don't bring my family into politics card" and " They have special needs" You are now doing the same. When will you ever face up to how pathetic the arguments are.The truth is you do not want your children to have a bog standard education in a mixed ability classroom. A truly socialist government would close all Private schools which would make ALL parents fight for better state education. Since the so called educated left( mostly idealistic with a private education ) want to continue to use private schools they continue to turn a blind eye to state education standards. Pathetic.
- Michael, London, 14/10/2008 15:31
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Proven time and time again - life makes hypocrites of us all.
- Helen, London, UK, 14/10/2008 14:46
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Are you sure you can still afford it Self?
- M, London, UK, 14/10/2008 14:36
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So Will, you call yourself a leftie. You can now add the title anti-semite. Your references to Sir Philip Green and his "shmatte" are wholly unacceptable and completely inaccurate. If he had not stepped in when he did, thousands of jobs and families would be affected by the collapse of Baugur group. It's not a major issue as you have not actually said anything inflammatory, it's just an unnecessary undertone to your argument.
- Eli Robinson, london, 14/10/2008 14:34
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But it's ok now Will you have been absolved of all feelings of guilt by looking big and telling us, your audience - and better still having done so in a public arena and getting paid for it too. Sweet. You can put the money for this aticle towards a boater and a hockey stick for the little darling.
- Squiz, Islington, 14/10/2008 14:10
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You're not a Leftie, Will, and you never was. You just pretended to be. Just like all the others around here,who move out to the Shires when their child gets to school age, to escape the multi culturalism that they claim to love so much.
- Ted, London, 14/10/2008 13:41
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In the old days middle class parents would send their kids off to barbaric boarding schools to toughen them up for fighting wars and building an empire, knowing full well they they would have a miserable time of it.
Todays heirs to that way of thinking are the well off lefties who send their kids to sink schools to be miserable in the interests of turning them into good little class warriors and builders of a more equal society.
I believe one owes it to one's children to make their school experiences as happy and fulfilling as possible even if that means having to pay twice for it.
- William, London, 14/10/2008 13:17
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If you want your son to be able to play organised sport on decent playing fields Public Schools are the only option. Thatcher started the process of selling off playing fields and unfortunately Labour Governments though selling fewer fields have not stopped the rot. The other aspect is that State school headmasters hae no interest in encouraging staff to run out of school sporting activities. If it doesn't get listed in the League Tables the Heads are not interested.
- Arthur Atkins, Brentford, 14/10/2008 13:08
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Oh get over it Diane and Tony and Will and the army of leftie curtain twitchers. Some people want to put there kids into prep school and some don't. Some people just have to drive an audi, some people have to take the bus. Is it really necessary that everyone be the same?
- Bloke, London, 14/10/2008 12:56
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Well, Will, at least you're refreshingly candid about your miserable hypocracy.
Don't despair though, after the myriad of countless, meaningless and ambiguous Campbell mantras spouted by Blair, and now Brown, you too, like most confused former Lefties, have become a walking contradiction.
Of course, I suppose you wouldn't dare to [,whisper it,] send your beloved offspring to [the eternally successful, if somewhat consistantly unpalatable and uncool] Grammar School, even if any still exist in your now swarming,
uncivilised, urban environs, thanks to putrid McLabour PC.
Grammar Schools, made almost extinct by the ignorant, biggoted, envious and spiteful Prescott-like-Left, were/are themselves portrayed as 'part of The Establishment', but were certainly never 'bad'.
They were simply successful 'specialist schools' for acedemics; and they had, if you recall, sister 'specialist schools' for 'higher level' technical studies.
It was the entry exam, the 11-plus, the psychologically flawed admission process only, that has always been the toxic problem.
That, and the woefully underfunded secondary schools, that later became Campbell's [politically convenient] equally abysmally underfunded, 'bog standard comprehensives'.
Perhaps unwittingly, you have finally exposed the Left's outrageous myth about Grammar School unsuitablity, many of which operate very quietly and successfully, like your private schools, 'outside' State interference, on a
semi-independent basis.
- Dave, cumbria, 14/10/2008 12:38
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Interestingly a self-styled diehard Thatcherite friend of mine approached this dilemma from the other direction. He believes in meritocracy and advancement through hard work, but acknowledges that this was inconsistent with his determination to buy whatever advantages and priveledges possible for his son.
- Dave, England, 14/10/2008 12:24
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State education in this country has been in the hands of left-wing moonbats and the politically correct social engineers for decades. The results have always been inevitable: disaster. Socialism works only for the 'nomenklatura', government ministers, union bosses, and party appatchiks. The working class has never been so well-off as they were under the Thatcher regime. You might have the grace to show a little embarrassment for supporting the extreme left for all these years. On the other hand, serves you right.
- Mike Fox, United Kingdom, 14/10/2008 11:51
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Let's face it, if all of us with kids in private school turned up and demanded their free state school places the government would be comepltely stuffed. They should be grateful to us and certainly not trying to handicap our kids from obtaining university places.
- Karen, Woking, 14/10/2008 11:29
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You can't really call yourself a 'diehard Leftie' if you're sending your son private. Left wing ideals are based on egalitarianism and equality of opportunity. If you didn't have the money to send your son private, you wouldn't be able to do so, regardless of how poorly he was performing at the local primary school. You'd have to send him to a state school like the vast majority of other parents who can't afford to do anything else. Not for them the middle class luxury of agonising as to whether they are 'sacrificing [their children] on the altar of [their] own idealism'. That's what's wrong and divisive about private schools - they only offer a 'choice' to those children whose parents are able to afford them.
- Lj, London, 14/10/2008 10:59
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"Comrades!" he cried. "You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples."
- George, England, 14/10/2008 10:39
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Will, you're no die hard leftie but you are a middle class hypocrite just like Blair and Abbott.
No big deal though, life goes on and your kid WILL get a better education and maybe the best days of his life. Just not one of yours 
Shin
- Shin, Kent UK, 14/10/2008 10:37
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