PLEASE keep your letters to 250 words maximum giving your name, address and daytime telephone number - even on emails. Email: letters@swindonadvertiser.co.uk. Write: Swindon Advertiser, 100 Victoria Road, Swindon, SN1 3BE. Phone: 01793 501806.

Anonymity is granted only at the discretion of the editor, who also reserves the right to edit letters.

Unfair grammar schools

SO CORRESPONDENT JD Lancashire, from Fisherton de la Mere (doesn’t sound like a council estate), SA August 11, argues “people from all political leanings will welcome a return to grammar schools”... “a bold step for meritocracy.”

Sorry, under the guise of meritocracy, the grammar scheme will merely ensure just a few more children with wealthy parents will get an unfair, accelerated start.

Just when the government’s recent work looks like it is beginning to pay off in improving secondary comprehensive education, the system is to be wounded with yet more unwanted reorganisation and division.

I speak as a product of a grammar school. I was picked out, at 11, lucky rather than particularly bright and fast tracked in a highly academic, well-resourced environment.

I have never ceased to appreciate how fortunate I was, and equally how unlucky the 92 per cent of my Ferndale Road cohorts were.

My children are all splendid products of great comprehensives, each with first class university degrees and responsible and worthwhile jobs, so you can see where this is going.

It is self-evident that picking out the top few per cent of children at 11 and throwing extra state money, resources and the best teachers at just them, at the expense of the majority, will undoubted deliver a few “super kids” able to walk into Oxbridge.

However, creaming off these pupils with their articulate and energetic middle class parents will inevitably destabilise surrounding comprehensives.

Don’t just take my word for it. Listen to John Stanley, the head of of St John’s Catholic Comprehensive, in Gravesend, whose excellent comprehensive is being slowly killed off by expanding grammars – which, repeated nationally, will ensure a new swathe of sink schools.

OECD analysis consistently finds that the best performing overall school systems in the world tend to be those which are the most equitable and not segregated according to perceived ability, tutored in or otherwise.

I admit a few gifted children may be held back a bit in a socially equitable and balanced environment. But, ultimately, taxpayer funding should ensure equality of access and promote the interests of the majority.

Sadly, you cannot stop wealthy, or just motivated, parents from buying their children small class sizes, lots of one-to-one, long school days, better teachers and great future networks, i.e. buying their offspring a place in the future elite.

But you can, and should, prevent this in the state sector.

New grammar schools will be populated by offspring of the middle class, where private tutoring to pass exams will be endemic, in part explaining why only 2.7 of children in existing grammar schools are from poorer parents.

With privilege and class already perpetuating itself via public schools, we can look forward to a new chosen elite, this time based on what private tutors can cram into children between seven and ten years old.

It’s self-evident that, devoid of a swathe of the more gifted children, the “left behind” schools will decline in average outcomes.

With Daily Mail vitriol having wiped out the Liberals, reactionary Kipperism ‘lovin it’ and so-called Labour opposition a running comedy sketch, we now have “back to the future” unbridled Conservatism, divide, separate out, select, and leave the dross to minimum wage jobs.

Those who claim to support genuine social mobility should be demanding more early years help for children in poor or dysfunctional families but that’s not very “sexy”.

The political left, aided by the Tory press (and to a large extent Tony Blair himself) have crucified the legacy of Tony Blair, but neither he nor Gordon Brown would ever have allowed the re-introduction of the inequity of two-tier state education.

Rather than promoting meritocracy, grammar schools operate in the same way as public schools, by making entrance (indirectly) contingent on the financial means of the parents and they deepen and perpetuate inequality in an already unequal society.

JOHN STOOKE

Haydon End, Swindon

....

Reasons I joined Labour

HAVING managed to steer clear of politics and religion for most of my life I reached an age where I became appalled at the selfish and brutal country that we now live in and made the decision to join the Labour Party.

It is somethingI am sure William Morris, the founder of the Swindon Advertiser would approved of, and

After all, it is supposed to be the party of the ordinary working family isn’t it?

I did not suddenly jump out of bed one morning and decide I was bored with life and looking for a new pastime to involve myself in.

It was the fact that I have witnessed in recent years attacks by the Cameron government on the unemployed with sanctions to deprive them of livelihood and thus getting them in to a never ending spiral of debt, the appalling scene of the ever increasing number of homeless people and the spiteful spectacle of the council house bedroom tax.

More recently there was the sordid spectacle of attacks on disabled people’s benefits by forcing them off of Disabled Living Allowance, and then humiliating them by having to attend a points scoring interview to obtain a new benefit of PIP, or the Personal Independence Payment.

Just prior to having lost the Brexit vote and his hasty departure Cameron’s government even tried unsuccessfully to withdraw PIP all together and leave the disabled with nothing.

The latest attack, which is targeted at the eldest and most vulnerable people in our society, is the plan in the pipeline to abolish Attendance Allowance, along with Carer’s Allowance, which makes life at least a little bit more bearable for elderly ill people in their latter years.

This is happening at the same time as we have had yet another interest rate cut, which means that the elderly are punished again.

After having saved diligently all of their working life they have found for the last nine years that their savings pay an insulting and derisory rate of interest.

They are now the ones expected to pay for the ills of the bankers and speculators.

At the other end of the scale we have the so-called super rich that have never had it so good as their wealth has been rocketing.

And, of course, we also have the never ending reports of the sheer greed of the FTSE 100 CEO’s who see fit to appropriate themselves with at least 140 times the wage of the average worker under them.

We also have zero hours contracts, Mike Ashley with his appalling treatment of the workforce and, of course Sir Phillip Green, “the locust” that fed off of BHS and not only did the workforce out of their jobs but pensions to boot, while he quaffed champagne on his luxury yacht.

This is why I decided it was time to join the Labour Party.

However, what a strange beast it is that I seem to have joined, as it does not want 160,000 new members like me to vote in a leadership election but conversely and absurdly will allow one to be extorted of the princely sum of £25 for the privilege. That’s if you have the spare cash of course.

Finally, I was astounded to read in the SA on August 8 that a vote for the preferred candidate in the Labour leadership contest had been conducted on the previous Saturday and yet none of the new members, including myself, had any inkling of it.

I contacted the secretary of the south Swindon branch, a charming lady called Halley Jackson, to ask why, as new members, none of us were invited.

She said the NEC ruling concerning new members who had joined the party since January 12, 2016, which was upheld by appeal at the High Court had also been extended to this local “preferred candidate vote” and that those eligible had been contacted by post beforehand.

As I mentioned in a previous letter that the SA was kind enough to print the

The branch voted 34 votes to 23 for the little known challenger Owen Smith in place of leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Hardly democracy at work one could argue, as what would have been the result if all had the chance to vote we will never know.

G A WOODWARD

Nelson Street, Swindon

....

Rising levels of CO2

IN REPLY to the question raised by Victor Cook (Aug 3) the amount of carbon dioxide a person breathes out is just more than 2lbs per day.

This multiplied by seven billion people comes to three billion tonnes of CO2 a year. Breathing accounts for nine per cent of the world’s CO2 production.

Each person further also adds to CO2 emissions from their employment, cooking, car, heating, lighting and using various electrical appliances in their home.

The world’s population is growing at the rate of one billion every 14 years. World population growth is the main cause of rising CO2 emissions and the damaging effects of climate change.

TERRY HAYWARD

Burnham Road, Swindon

....

Watered down Brexit

UKIP won the EU referendum and Britain is now set on a clear path to leave the EU.

But what does Brexit mean? If we leave it to the Conservative Party to negotiate the exit terms we must expect a very watered down version of Brexit.

The majority of Conservative MPs supported the Remain side in the debate. Many Tory MPs still support the free movement of people and Britain staying in the Single Market.

We could end up with a Brexit that is so watered down that there is hardly any difference to what we have as full EU members.

Do we want to enjoy real ale or will be be satisfied with just a beer shandy?

STEVE HALDEN

Beaufort Green, Swindon

....

Parish plans not fair

SWINDON Borough Council has decided to impose parish councils on all of the areas of Swindon without a parish council.

This is to enable local taxes to rise above that which the government allows.

In spite of a so-called consultation this is a done deal, there is nothing that can be done to stop it.

A less well off part of Swindon will be included in north central Swindon Parish and will have to pay for the town centre businesses that will not pay parish precept, this is patently unfair.

Therefore I am asking my north Swindon friends if there is an appetite to campaign for a parish consisting of Penhill, Pinehurst and Gorse Hill.

STEVE THOMPSON

Norman Road, Swindon