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I was always torn on issue of private education. I benefited from it myself (hugely), and always felt abolition would be like pulling ladder up after me. And yet point is only a tiny proportion of the population was ever going to climb that ladder. That is profoundly unfair.
There is an issue of choice. As a small-L liberal I would argue people should have right not to use state sector for education, as with health. But private schools remain the greatest agent of inequality in our society, and that needs to change.
My school instilled that most crucial of gifts: confidence. From the first day we were encouraged to take all the opportunities laid before us. We would all go to the best universities. We would all meet the right people. Even the most academically mediocre kids would thrive.
The most elite private schools prepare you for Oxbridge from beginning. It doesn’t need to be spoken. It’s transmitted through ancient buildings, special vocabulary, institutional history and prestige, luminous alumni: for the most part, a privilege fully absorbed & unquestioned.
Class privilege won’t disappear with abolition, it’ll find new ways to assert itself. Confiscation of property is extreme, will be challenged in court & further inflame culture war. I don’t have answer to any of this. But if we want to transform society, we have to actually do it
