I am writing to express my dismay and astonishment at your story in last week’s paper, which reported that within weeks of Labour winning control of Merton Council it has asked Lord Harris, a Tory Peer, who has given more than £3 million to the Conservative Party, to set up a free school.
I am and have been an active member of the Labour Party all my adult life and I am fundamentally opposed to endorsing Michael Gove's flagship free school policy. It is the privatisation of our children’s education and I believe it is wrong that state funding should be given to small groups of individuals to run schools that are unaccountable to their local communities.
Free schools are the clearest example of the intention of this Government to turn state education into a free market free-for-all and to provide opportunities for the private sector to make a profit out of state-funded schools.
For Labour in Merton to be embarking on this course in the run-up to a General Election is inexplicable. It leaves many of us who believe in good locally accountable schools, deeply disappointed.
Yours sincerely
Brenda Grant
- Send your letters to: letters@wimbledonguardian.co.uk
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