Leader – Painful hypocrisy over education exposed

Hackney councillors have exchanged opinions on education in one of those Town Hall debates that resemble a school debating society.

Since Labour is in the driving seat, it seemed another case of the party talking to itself and preaching to the converted about the Evil Tories. More revealing was the sniping from the opposition.

“Diane” and “Shami” jibes from Liberal Democrat councillor Abraham Jacobson said all there was to say about tensions between familial concerns and societal needs. Contradictions between political posturing and private choice about one’s children’s schooling were evident in the case of the Hackney North MP’s memorable decision to send her child to an exclusive private school – and, more recently, the same choice by the newly ermine-robed former director of Liberty.

If their hypocrisy was painful to observe, it has been painful, too, for Labour councillors. Cllr Mete Coban said it was “their [Chakrabarti and Abbott’s] personal thing” and pointing this out should not “detract from our argument”. But it does detract from it – because it is intellectually unsustainable to decline to condemn party colleagues, who, in their rhetoric and choices, imply that what is best for everyone else’s children is in reality not good enough for their own.