Sunday Mirror: Carole Malone Column: Blair hypocrisy in a class of its own

WE would be absolutely within our rights to rant and rail at Tony Blair - at his hypocrisy, his arrogance and the big fat lie that his priority is "Education, Education, Education".

We could also say that his decision to have sons Euan and Nicky privately tutored was not only a shameful contravention of his Socialist principles but a betrayal of every other kid struggling in schools with pitiful standards and crappy teachers - kids who will very likely end up on life's scrap heap because their parents can't afford the pounds 50 an hour Blair pays to get his kids taught privately.

We could also say that in making a decent education available only to the middle classes he is perpetuating a system of Haves and Have Nots, a system which Blair promised he'd abolish if put in power.

We could say all that. And we'd be bloody well spot-on.

And while there probably isn't a parent in the land who wouldn't hand over their last penny to privately educate their kids if a) they needed it, and b) they could afford it. The question is, Why the hell should they?

Why, having kicked out an elitist Tory Government which only ever catered for those kids destined for private schools and then Oxbridge, and which didn't give a monkey's toss about the rest, should we now accept a supposedly Socialist one whose leader seems to think that while Labour's policies are good enough for the rest of the nation's kids, they're not good enough for his own.

What Tony and Cherie (and make no mistake, it's Cherie pulling Tony's strings here) have done in paying for Euan and Nicky to be tutored privately by teachers from the pounds 17,000-a-year Westminster School, is indefensible.

With their, "One rule for the people and another for us" policy they have spawned a new category of New Labour supporters - the Socialist Climbers, a breed of middle-class, supercilious, snobs who pay lip service to Labour's principles and to living in an equal society, but who'd rather die than allow their own flesh and blood to take their chances with the hoi polloi.

The Blair's decision to get Euan private tuition so he'll achieve the necessary grades for Oxford probably has nothing to do with Euan and everything to do with the snobbery and aspirations of his mum and dad, a couple of self-serving over-achievers, who've forgotten what we put New Labour into Government for. And, anyway, why is it so vital that Euan gets to Oxford? Why can't he go to a redbrick university - the kind those people who voted for his Dad went to - if they were lucky.

I feel sorry for Euan and Nicky Blair, who must be mortally embarrassed at the accusations of nepotism quite rightly levelled at their parents. And isn't it the case that Tony and Cherie - and, in fact, the rest of this Government - have become more Establishment than the Tories ever were. God, even Prince William who, let's face it could have got into Oxford or Cambridge with just a Cycling Proficiency Test certificate, didn't choose Oxbridge, but the much less prestigious St Andrews.

But what the Blairs have done here personifies the hypocrisy and the snobbery that has come to signify New Labour. When we kicked the Tories into touch after 17 years of having to stand by while they disregarded the needs of 90 per cent of the population while catering for the 10 per cent that constituted the Establishment, we voted for a Government we believed would lead us away from all that class nonsense.

Blair promised us a brave new world with equal opportunities for all. He said he'd take care of our health and our education and while he has made inroads into both, neither are obviously good enough for HIS kids.

OK, I know there are tens of thousands of parents all over Britain who routinely pay for private tuition because, with exams approaching, they want their kids to have the very best chance of doing well. They're not prepared to play Russian roulette with their children's futures or stand by while they go to schools with sub- standard teachers and overcrowded classes and while we have an Education Secretary like Estelle Morris who trots out shameful truisms like: "There are some comprehensives I wouldn't touch with a barge pole".

In using his influence to get his kids into London's prestigious Oratory - the country's best state school - and in paying for private tuition, the Blairs have betrayed the people of this country.

Euan and Nicky are getting the best education the state can provide courtesy of their Dad's position - and that kind of nepotism has no place in a Labour Government.

And while no one can blame Blair for wanting the best for his kids, he must understand every other parent wants the same thing for theirs - and they deserve to have it. The same standards of education should be available to kids from a sink estate in the same way they are to the children of the rich and famous.

Anything else just isn't good enough!