Ruthless Ruth Kelly

FORMER EDUCATION Secretary Ruth Kelly has angered parents and teachers. She took her son out of an inner London state school and sent him to a £15,000-a-year Home Counties prep school that prides itself on getting pupils into top 'public schools' such as Eton and Harrow.

Keith Whitehead

She said that her son suffers from dyslexia but her local authority Tower Hamlets has a wide range of schools that can support children with learning difficulties. Six of them were rated 'excellent' and 14 good even by OFSTED, who said that pupils with learning difficulties at her son's old school made "particularly good progress".

Ironically, one of her government's most controversial education policies is to insist that children with learning difficulties should be removed from special needs schools and be placed in mainstream state schools.

New Labour has shut 117 local authority special needs schools, many of them very successful, since coming into office. 20 of these closures were authorised by Kelly herself in her time as Education Secretary.

If Kelly was serious about the prospects for children with learning difficulties, she would be backing the campaigns to save such schools. Kelly is plainly opting out of the state system because she can afford to do so. She is an overpaid hypocrite and a typical New Labour minister.