I COULD not decently write an article to be published on January 23, 2006, without observing that today is the 200th anniversary of the death of the Younger Pitt. He is one of the four great prime ministers who saved Britain from defeat in a major European war, along with his father, who became the Earl of Chatham, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. The Younger Pitt saved Europe from Bonapartism as surely as Churchill saved Europe from Nazism. These are men to whom we owe survival and freedom.

I shall not, however, write on Pitt the Younger; I advise anyone who has not already done so to read William Hague’s excellent life. Pitt deserves a book rather than a mere column. He set a standard of courage, honesty and ability that few subsequent prime ministers have reached.

Pitt faced a supreme challenge; Tony Blair is not a prime minister of the same qualities or in the same situation. Yet Mr Blair does show courage in his educational proposals; he deserves the support that David Cameron has offered, embarrassing as Tory support must be. Mr Blair is likely to be deserted by half his own party, which makes his political courage the greater; it also makes firm public support more necessary. For the moment, at least on educational policy, we must all be Blairites.

Of course, one can criticise the cautious inadequacies of the education White Paper. Yet the objective the Prime Minister has laid down in his foreword is admirable: “Our aim is the creation of a system of non-fee-paying state schools. It will be for schools to decide whether they wish to acquire a Trust — similar to those that support Academies — or to become a self-governing foundation school. It will be easy for them to do so, without unnecessary bureaucratic interference. They will do so in a system of fair admissions, fair funding and clear accountability.” An admirable objective, but hard to achieve.

Unfortunately, there has been a systemic failure in our system of secondary education, despite higher expenditure and real improvement in some areas. On the Government’s own figures, it is about a half-and-half situation. Half the students reach acceptable standards and almost half are failing. To be precise, 56 per cent of 16-year-olds achieved five or more GCSE passes at A to C level in 2005, but 44 per cent did not. That is not acceptable; it would be intolerable if Labour failed to carry substantial reforms through Parliament.

The Prime Minister believes that the schools themselves should be given their independence. The role of the local education authorities should be greatly reduced. Parents and teachers should be given more power. These surely are the right policies. Good education comes from good schools and good teachers. Almost all successful schools operate with substantial independence. The major reason that the private sector does so much better in winning university places is not simply that it is better funded — not all private schools are wealthy. What is important is that schools in the independent sector have to meet the requirements of parents who choose to spend their money on education. Independence is of the essence.

The new Trust schools would be free to develop as independent institutions, free to own their own property, to develop their own specialisations, to form their own institutional culture, to meet the needs of their locality. They would hire their own staff, they would make their own arrangements for admissions. It is at this point that the Blimps of the old Labour Party go red in the face, blow out their nostrils and reach for their revolvers.

To them, independent admissions policies mean the restoration of grammar schools, the 11-plus, the abolition of comprehensives and heaven knows what else. Selection for football schools, modern languages or music is acceptable to them — heaven alone knows why — but selection for maths or science, history or English is not. That is not selection for “aptitude” but for “academic ability”, which they see as quite a different thing. This meaningless distinction splits the Labour Party from top to bottom.

In fact, few people want to go back to the 1944 Act, though that was better suited to the real situation in 1944 than the present system is to the real situation in 2006. David Cameron has distressed some members of his own party by saying that he is not in favour of restoring the 11-plus or “the grammar school system”.

It was a terrible blunder to destroy the grammar schools in the 1960s and 1970s, but the modern system must be developed from the present situation. In that, Mr Cameron is right.

The underlying issue is a familiar political choice between freedom and competition or socialism and protectionism. When Neil Kinnock, who is opposed to the Blair reforms, was defeated in 1992, that was not because the British electorate wanted another five years of Tory government; we already knew the Conservatives were running out of steam. The Conservatives won in 1992 because Neil Kinnock, as leader of the Labour Party, was still a socialist and a protectionist. It was when Tony Blair abandoned socialism that he made the Labour Party electable.

Yet the Labour Party was never really converted to freedom or competition. The White Paper would modernise schools by freedom, not by regulation. But excellent schools are a threat to mediocre schools, just as Toyota was a threat to Rover. In the end competition prevails. Socialists believe that should be prevented by reducing the best to the level of the mediocre. That is what Neil Kinnock believes in, with a reactionary passion.

Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly — whatever concessions they may have to make — believe in modernisation through freedom. They deserve support. If they are defeated, Labour will return to being the party of socialist protectionism, and therefore the enemy of modernisation; Labour would again be unelectable.

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