It was for much that kind of reasoning which led the then high-Tory Leicestershire County Council to pioneer comprehensive schools, the first of which, Oadby Beauchamp, opened in 1958. The political decision was pragmatic: the county’s population was growing rapidly in the late 1950s and 1960s and an increasingly middle-class electorate would not have put up with selection at 11. The City of Leicester, with a usually Labour controlled council, resisted introducing comprehensive schools and retained selection through to the reform of local government in the early 1970s.

The recognised failures of the selection system were largely: (a) the provision of few properly resourced and motivated technical schools for vocational schooling, contrary to the original vision of the 1944 education act; and (b) the wide dispersion in 11+ selection rates across Britain ranging from c. 15% in one authority oop north through to repeat opportunities to sit the 11+ exam again in parts of south Wales, largely reflecting the numbers of local grammar school places available. The average selection rate for the selective schools was reportedly c. 25% before comprehensive schools became the normal experience.

There are currently only 164 remaining, selective grammar schools in Britain. Several west European countries have retained vestiges of selective schooling of a kind, such as the gymnasiums in west Germany and surviving lycees in France.

Btw Nobel Laureate Sir Peter Mansfield FRS, failed his 11+ exam and left his secondary modern school at 15 to become an apprentice bookbinder. He took A-levels at nightschool to gain a place to read physics at Queen Mary College London from which he graduated in 1959. He went on to become professor of physics at the Univeristy of Nottingham.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mansfield

In the course of a career, I’ve encountered several distinguished academics who virtually boasted that they had failed their 11+ exam.

But the decision time that splits a person’s life into “academic” and “vocational”, at the mere age of 11, always was a bit arbitrary, wasn’t it?

Compare this:

“The UK’s most expensive private schools are producing pupils who achieve the worst grades at university, according to research.

“An eight-year study of graduates’ results by researchers at the University of Warwick suggests that the more parents pay in school fees, the less chance their children have of getting a good degree.

“They believe this is due to the fact that A-level results are a product of both potential ability and coaching – the better the coaching, the lower the natural ability a student needs to get the A-level grades necessary to gain a university place.

“However, once at university, potential ability becomes more important and the boost provided by the independent schools’ coaching does not continue. . . .”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2552523.stm

For all the concern about the products of fee-paying schools, it is perhaps difficult to appreciate that less than 7 per cent of all pupils at school go to “non-maintained” schools.

Two maintained boys grammar schools within walking distance of where I sit achieve better average A-level results than Eton.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by libcon: :: A Whiff of the Branding Iron http://bit.ly/16pmQ6...

Broadly speaking I’m with Sunder inasmuch as I’m buggered if can see anything in the Grieve’s comments that suggests that the Tory’s actually have a plan here, other than simply to stick the word ‘British’ on the front of HRA as a sop to some of their more xenophobic camp followers.

I’m pleased to see that I’m not the only one – and that Unity is with me here.

Great OP.

By the way, there are a few documents linked to in the other thread by Evan Price that mention Bills of Rights and Obligations, written by Conservative lawyers… I wasn’t aware this was a Conservative approach to rights and freedoms.

Quite – those are some of the most disreputable laws to be found in any Western democracy.

Presumably the loss of ability to sue for libel, should said shitrags start publishing inflammatory garbage about them that demonises them and their family.

Taken to its logical conclusion, what they’re arguing for benefits right-wing parties of the privileged as well – it’s well-known that the loss of voting rights that comes with a felony conviction in some states of the US has the knock-on effect of disenfranchising the poor (and usually black) citizens, who tend not to vote Republican.