(posted 7496 days ago)Times
October 10, 2003Letwin puts party image at risk with school snub
By Rosemary Bennett, Deputy Political EditorOLIVER LETWIN declared yesterday that he would go out on the streets and beg, rather than send his children to a state school in London. Risking months of careful work repositioning the Tories as a party in tune with ordinary people, the Shadow Home Secretary added that he would “give his right arm” to send them to a fee-paying school.
In an attack at a fringe meeting on classroom standards in London, where the Letwin family lives, the Eton-educated banker said he was desperate to get his daughter, Laura, 10, and her twin brother, Jeremy, a place in a public school.
“In Lambeth, where I live, I would give my right arm to send them to a fee-paying school,” he said. “If necessary I would go out on the streets and beg rather than send them to the school next to where I live.”
It is likely that Mr Letwin’s son will follow his father into Eton next year.
Labour said his remarks showed that the Tories held state education in contempt and had given up on trying to improve it.
Mr Letwin said he would not mind using state schools in his Dorset constituency, where his family has a home, but wanted to see his children during the week, so the family lived in South London. At the moment, he said, only middle-class parents with good jobs were in a position to buy a private education for their children.
“But what about the other parents in Lambeth who are forced to use the state schools because they don’t have the money? We need to give them the choice as well.”
Unlike senior government ministers, who are obliged by party policy to stick with the state system, most Shadow Cabinet members with children send them to private schools.
Iain Duncan Smith’s four children are all privately educated, although he is keen to point out that his eldest son went to a state primary school before winning a scholarship to Eton.
The Conservatives’ new education policy encourages parents in Britain to consider private education, allowing them to take part of the value of a state education out of the system and spend it where they wish.
Although Mr Letwin’s comments were not out of line with party policy, they will have damaged attempts made by the Tories to appear more in touch with modern Britain, where the majority of families send their children to state schools.
Locals in Kennington, where Mr Letwin lives, said that they thought the school which had attracted Mr Letwin’s outspoken attack was the Lilian Baylis Comprehensive School, which came bottom of the London league table for secondary schools this year.
Mr Letwin, one of the party’s leading intellectuals and thinkers, has proved gaffe-prone in the past. Last year he let a burglar into his house to use the lavatory at 5.15am and ended up chasing him down the street in his dressing gown.
He also said recently that it would take a miracle for the Tories to win the next election, and during the 2001 campaign landed the party in hot water when he said the Tories would cut taxes to the tune of £20 billion.
This week his new asylum policy fell flat when said he would send all applicants to a place “far, far away” for processing while admitting that he had no idea where he had in mind.
His latest blunder makes it less likely that he could stand as part of a “dream ticket” in a future leadership contest. He has been mentioned as a possible No 2 to Michael Howard, the Shadow Chancellor, to stand on a platform of unifying the party.
Stephen Twigg, the Junior Education Minister, said: “Oliver Letwin has insulted the parents, teachers and pupils of every state school in the country.
“We are working with schools to improve standards and give every child, regardless of their ability to pay, the kind of choice that Oliver Letwin wants parents to pay for.”
Should Letwin be the next Tory leader?
Send your e-mails to: debate@thetimes.co.uk