‘It’s fine for the Shadow Cabinet to send their children to grammars’

LABOUR’S education chief was accused of ‘gross hypocrisy’ last night after claiming it was fine for her colleagues’ children to go to grammar schools.

Even though she and her party are vehemently opposed to selection, Angela Rayner said she would not dictate to other members of the Shadow Cabinet because ‘we are not a Stalinist state’.

Her comments come despite the fact that Labour’s policy is to oppose Theresa May’s plans to open more grammars.

The party’s manifesto, published on Tuesday, called the plan a ‘vanity project’; and Miss Rayner branded the plans an ‘ideological attack on the working class’.

Shami Chakrabarti, the shadow attorney general, sent her son to £18,000-a-year Dul- wich College, while Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott sent her son to £10,000-ayear City of London School. Jeremy Corbyn’s son went to the selective Queen Elizabeth School in north London, although it was against his wishes.

And Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry sent her sons to selective schools – one to Dame Alice Owen’s State School and another to London Oratory.

Yesterday Miss Rayner, who has sent her three children to state comprehensives, said she hoped colleagues would follow her lead in favouring non-selective state schools – but acknowledged that some had used grammars and the private sector. Asked whether colleagues should take a party line with their children’s education, the close ally of Mr Corbyn told the London Evening Standard: ‘It’s ultimately a parent’s choice. I’m not about to tell parents what to do with their children. That’s not for me to do that.’

Asked why she had not considered a ban on Shadow Cabinet members choosing grammars, she said: ‘Because we are not a Stalinist state. We are not blanket-banning people from deciding what school they want their children to go to.’

The Tory candidate for Mid Bedfordshire, Nadine Dorries, said: ‘Labour politicians are the first to criticise any MP who uses private health or education for themselves or their children. It’s gross hypocrisy and double standards, and typical of what we have come to expect from this shambles of a Shadow Cabinet.’