Out of Eton, out of touch with most people’s reality

AGOOD parent wants what is best for his or her children. That is just as true for those in work facing a weekly £20 cut in their Universal Credit payments as it is for the wealthy with their telephone number salaries.

And with Tony Blair now rehabilitated by the Labour leadership, it is perhaps an appropriate time to repeat his famous mantra. For “education, education, education” shows just how important education is to the nation’s children.

Trouble is if you are on a low wage then you only have the choice of whatever comprehensives/ academies are in the locality.

By contrast, the most affluent can afford to pay the fees of establishments like Eton, whose fees can run to over £48k a year. Even St James’ charges £19.5k for the oldest boarder, making it unaffordable for most Grimsby parents.

Which is why I disagree with your veteran columnist Peter Chapman, who thinks that abolishing the charitable status of public schools is “just a patronising bit of political showing off” (October 7) by the Labour Party. For why should educational establishments catering for the monied elite enjoy this additional perk paid for by all taxpayers? It just doesn’t make sense.

When you realise just how many ex-public schoolboys have been Prime Minister since the 1990s, it makes one understand just how the lives lived by our politicians have become remote from most people’s reality, and why this is so.

I mean, how does an Eton education qualify you to have any perception of what it is like to live in northern towns such as Grimsby and to struggle on the minimum wage?

And while Johnson seems to be supporting yet another U-turn in wanting employers to pay workers more, he conveniently forgets how those working for his government – including nurses, teachers, policemen and doctors – have seen their wages fall in real terms since 2010.

Out of Eton, out of touch, you might say.

Tim Mickleburgh, Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby.