Private schools - public scandal!

New Labour is a body of people given to bouts of control freakery, petty jealousies and a cavalier attitude to tradition. In fact, tradition is a dirty word in their vocabulary. Another thing this New Labour regime is fond of doing is sneaking in contentious legislation as a hidden-away clause in a bill that is designed for totally different legislation. That's why retired colonels, teachers, political activists, anyone campaigning or complaining can find themselves banged up in a police cell under terrorism laws. And the real hook-handed terrorists get to run rings round the likes of the useless Jack Straw.

New Labour had the public schools in its sights. It has got the Charity Commission to show the world that public schools (private in the UK!) can "demonstrate how they bring real benefit to the public". If not, all manner of measures will be taken against them. Now these independent schools in England are protesting about "too narrow" rules for charitable status - as two out of five test-case schools fail to qualify under the testing.

I know there has always been an ongoing argument/discussion about children being educated privately. But this is a sneaky New Labour ploy to encourage their social engineering fantasies. Of course, most of the New Labour front bench are walking talking hypocrites, no greater one of which is Harriet Harman, who would sniff mightily at the thought of her children going any where near the local school. Same went for Tony Blair, who moved heaven and hell to fix it for his kids. They are the last people on this planet to moralise seeing that their moral compasses have long since ceased to meet any scientific purpose.

So we could get the situation of several of the smaller private schools closing. Far from being a benefit to children from a less fortunate background, the state system will be increased by an influx of children requiring education at the hands of Ed Balls. The costs on the public purse of such increased demand will far outweigh the benefits of any charitable status change. They never think things through properly. Any casual viewing of the debates in the House of Lords on BBC Parliament will confirm how utterly devoid of logic this current government is.