The headmaster of my old London school, Kevin Hoare, is nobody’s fool but now he’s turned political pundit. As a stern English and PE teacher at Finchley Catholic high school, “Mr” Hoare watched me sink into the mud on cross-country runs around Dollis Brook and put his head in his hands as I failed to vault the horse. He always was an authority figure. Last week Hoare was thrust into the media spotlight by the row over “cash for places”.

In three representative areas across England dozens of faith schools, comprehensives all, have been “named and shamed” by Ed Balls, the schools secretary, for breaking the admissions code. Six offenders in the borough of Barnet were singled out for demanding voluntary contributions as a condition of entry. Five of these are Jewish schools which claim the money will pay for extra security. “O tempora, o mores” as my Latin teacher didn’t say.

Finchley Catholic high school wasn’t guilty of asking for donations before entry, although the school is expected to pay 10% of all capital costs for building (43% of parents voluntarily contribute - or rather 57% don’t). So the school was surprised to be singled out for publicity.

Does it fail to take its share of statemented children with learning difficulties? No, actually. In the current year 7 there are 10 such boys, out of whom four are autistic. Approximately 8% of the entire school roll are on a statement list. No boy has been selected on the basis of family connection for more than four years in line with departmental policy. Let’s hope Whitehall got its facts right with the other schools held up for opprobrium, otherwise Balls is riding for a fall.

He has had the misfortune to meet an opponent if anything more articulate than him. Hoare has acquitted himself well on television and radio shows where he has represented faith schools in Barnet. The headmaster believes “there is an anti-faith school agenda at the moment”. He may be on to something. For it is an old Westminster custom that when governments are in trouble ambitious politicians start fighting not the next general election, a lost cause, but the election after that - the contest to become party leader.

So, in the twilight of Tory rule before 1997, hitherto herbivorous europhiles like Malcolm Rifkind and Stephen Dorrell roared like sceptical lions before their increasingly right-wing party. Not to be outdone, Michael Portillo, then defence secretary, and other Tory “bastards” outdid each other in appealing to the right. Their pronouncements arguably tarnished the party for a generation in the eyes of the public, but for them it was only the electorate that would choose the next Conservative leader that mattered.

Gordon Brown’s cause is far from hopeless. Yes, the recent run of opinion polls has been appalling but there are still two years to turn it around and the prime minister wields a comfortable majority in the Commons. Discipline does seem to be breaking down, however. A bad sign is that even ministers are beginning to misbehave.

Ivan Lewis, the health minister told the News of the World that Labour was “losing touch” and must appeal to the “mainstream majority who are. . . feeling squeezed”. Then Gerry Sutcliffe, the ‘Licensing Minister’, attacked the tax rises on booze in the budget. On Friday he recanted: “My comments do not accurately reflect my views.” He “misspoke”, as Hillary Clinton said.

One rueful former minister shakes his head: “Alastair Campbell would have had his balls off. What are they playing at in No 10?”

The parliamentary Labour party is in uproar over the abolition of the 10p tax band which will hit low-paid overwhelmingly Labour voters. Brown’s defence of his tax changes to the party on Monday was, unprecedently, challenged by loyalist MPs. When he left for the Nato summit, Greg Pope, a former Foreign Office minister and whip, tabled an early day motion condemning the cut. He is no Blairite dissident and his motion attracted names way beyond the usual suspects. He has now withdrawn it after having the policy “explained to him”. It’s getting messy.

Geoff Hoon is proving to be an invaluable “explainer” as chief whip - see how he got Alan Johnson out of trouble by inserting conscience clauses into the health secretary’s kamikaze human fertilisation bill. But what with highly unpopular closures of local post offices and economic gloom, there is only so much “explaining” that a man can do. If Brown and his home secretary, Jacqui Smith, persist in trying to railroad 42-day pretrial detention for terrorist suspects through the Commons, a real disaster beckons.

The ambitious Balls, adviser to Brown at the Treasury and now raised to cabinet eminence, will have been watching the mounting chaos. He will also have observed his Blairite rivals flexing their muscles. David Miliband, the foreign secretary, refuses to accept that his grandiose-sounding post is political Siberia and has produced thoughtful speeches about the future of Britain. James Purnell at work and pensions has tried a nip of the hard stuff of welfare reform. Very brave, minister, as Sir Humphrey would say. In the face of left-wing anarchy in the party he has already decided to dilute it. Very wise, minister.

The schools secretary will also be perturbed by the confusion at No 10 where old friends such as Brown’s PPS Ian Austin MP and other members of the old guard have been expelled from offices and jobs by Stephen Carter, the new technocratic chief of staff. In stuffier days The Times was the house journal of governments. Under Brown that house journal is PR Week. In its pages you can read of the new team’s successes and the old team’s defenestration. Balls cannot be thrilled.

Other Labour folk have also been noticing Balls’s zeal to purge the faith schools. Under Tony Blair no education secretary would have dared. The Blessed Tony rejoiced in any variation from the bog standard comprehensive norm. Under Brown, Carter signalled there would be no move to the left but rather the embrace of Blairite reforms. Not everyone, it appears, has got the message.

Conor Ryan, David Blunkett’s adviser in his years at education who helped to mastermind the literacy hour, rightly points out “the problem with turning [the admissions code] into a cause celebre is that it alienates many of the good school leaders that this government needs if it is to tackle failing schools.

“After all, the reason why we established the Office of Schools Adjudicator was to take the heat out of admissions disputes”. Ryan concludes: “The schools secretary and his ministers would be wise to let him . . . get on with the job, and then to show the same zeal for improving the 638 low-attaining secondaries highlighted by Gordon Brown last year.”

Balls’s admissions purge panders to the Labour party’s worst levelling down instincts; it's an irrelevance that will hurt the government. Yes, but it is relevant to the future prospects of Balls. In the Labour party, the constituencies and the unions, there are votes to be had for attacking faith schools. The National Union of Teachers hates any school other than the bog-standard, while more than one Guardianista columnist and Labour think-tank regularly kick faith schools. If Brown loses the next election this bitter rump of old Labour headbangers, whingers and malcontents may have a big say in the election of the next leader.

Come off it Balls; handle with care. Faith schools, I agree, should not put up invisible barriers to the working class and they do irritate parents who can’t get their children in by hook and even crook. But witch-hunts are not on. This concerns more than hundreds of thousands of disaffected parents in middle England who, like me, look to these schools for the only decent state education available to their children.

For I have an ally at court. Another Finchley old boy who would wear the school tie proudly if he could only find it, is Damian McBride, the prime minister’s chief spokesman. Our state school conspiracy is more than a match for the Tory Old Etonian network – or even that of old boys of the fee-paying Nottingham school, alma mater to the schools secretary. Tread softly on our dreams, Ed.

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