Mad Mel on educational 'Stalinism'

If you read the press and the blogosphere you'll know that there are now more Nazis and Stalinists than at any point in history. Stalinists, Nazis, 'totalitarians' - can't get on a bus without tripping over at least one, I find. Anyway, here's Melanie Phillips outing Mr Balls:

"For Mr Balls, [faith schools] are an obvious target because he is the chief of staff of the Labour party's unreconstructed class-warfare wing, whose aim is to attack excellence as 'elitist', impose a uniformity of mediocrity and beat the living daylights out of the middle classes wherever possible.

Possessed of an ideological zealotry exceeded only by his arrogance, he is that curiously dated and contradictory throwback - a Stalinist ex-public schoolboy, who is determined to deny to others the educational advantages that brought him to where he is today."

Hmph! New Labour does class-warfare all right - but it seems to some of us that it's the working class they're inclined to have a pop at. Truth is, those of us who favour closing faith schools and having them turned into museums of atheism are bound to be disappointed by Mr Balls. Stalinism indeed! It's not even Stalinism-lite. Rubbish, so it is. Anyway, one of the reasons Mel cites for this imaginary New Labour persecution of faith schools is...

"Faith schools are a firm favourite of the middle classes; that makes them enemies of the people for starters."

Not in the West of Scotland they aren't, which brings me to this point. There are a lot of reasons why we know Melanie Phillips is talking bollocks but here's just one: she's done so on many occasions in the past and I noticed she does it again here...

"Britain has tumbled down the international league tables in literacy, maths and science."

There are no 'international league tables' that measures the educational performance of Britain for the simple reason that there's no such thing as the British education system. This is not to say that Scotland's system performs that much better than the English system but perform better it does. Yet it has fewer faith schools, no selection, and a smaller private sector than England. Shouldn't such a 'Stalinist' state of affairs produce poorer results in the Mel-model?

Via: Dave's Part