Labour’s Lammy moves out of constituency – so sons can go to top school
A LABOUR MP who mounted a crusade against local gang culture has moved out of his constituency so his children can attend an ‘outstanding’ faith school in an affluent middle-class area.
David Lammy, who is seeking to become London’s first black mayor in 2016, moved away from his Tottenham constituency a year before his oldest son reached school age. Mr Lammy now lives with his wife Nicola and their two sons in a £1.2 million house in Crouch End, a London suburb renowned for its excellent state schools. The move risks opening Mr Lammy to criticism that he has ‘abandoned’ his constituency: at the school nearest to his former home in Tottenham, more than half of the pupils speak English as an additional language.
The levels of pupils needing free school meals and having special educational needs – both indicators of a school facing a challenging academic environment – are also well above average. According to Ofsted, ‘the number of pupils who join the school in the middle of the year is high compared with other schools and many of these pupils are at the very early stages of learning English’.
However, the school inspectorate rates the Catholic school attended by Mr Lammy’s two children in Crouch End as ‘outstanding’ overall – compared to just ‘good’ for the Tottenham school. It notes that only a small number of pupils speak English as a foreign language.
It is understood that Mr Lammy feels his decision to move his family away from Tottenham – which took place in 2009 but has never been publicised before – was justified in the interests of his sons.
His faith is also compliant with the school’s religious ethos, and he has pointed out to friends that his family home is ‘only a few streets’ away from the edge of his constituency.
The move has echoes of Mr Lammy’s own childhood. He grew up next to the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham, but left aged ten after winning a choral scholarship to a state boarding school in Peterborough.
He has described the move as his ‘XFactor moment’, and went on to excel academically, attending Harvard Law School, where he met a young Barack Obama, and becoming an MP at 28.
Four years ago, Labour MP Diane Abbott caused controversy when she said that taking her son James out of Hackney’s school system and sending him to a £10,000-a-year private school was justified because ‘once a black boy is lost to the world of gangs, it’s very hard to get them back’.
Mr Lammy was a vocal and prominent figure during the 2011 Tottenham riots, blaming the disturbances on ‘a Grand Theft Auto culture that glamor- ises violence. A consumer culture fixated on the brands we wear, not who we are and what we achieve. A gang culture with warped notions of loyalty, respect and honour’.
He said working-class parents needed to be able to discipline their children to deter them from joining gangs and getting involved in knife crime: ‘Many constituents came up to me after the riots and blamed the Labour government, saying, “You guys stopped us being able to smack our children”.
‘They no longer feel sovereign in their own homes. Parents in my constituency are frightened that if they smack their children, a social worker will come knocking at the door. The ability to exercise their own judgment in relation to discipline and reasonable chastisement has been taken away.’
Last night, a spokesman for the MP said: ‘Mr Lammy has never discussed his children’s education.’