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Jonathan Freedland has it exactly right in the Guardian, following the recent report concerning school admissions procedures in the light of the new schools admissions code:

The only issue is fairness.

On this simple point, the Tory chorus of denunciation has no response. They cannot defend the unfairness of putting kids whose grandpa was an old boy at the head of the queue, because they know that's a covert way of ensuring a once-white school stays white. And they can't defend probing into parental background and marital status because they know that is the time-honoured way of screening out "the wrong sort". They know that these dodges are not mere technicalities and oversights, they are backdoor forms of discrimination by race and class.

What it amounts to, then, is nothing more than an affluent cry of "Hands off our privileges".

Tags — Politics