No, Diane. You delude yourself. We were neither surprised nor shocked. You do not have to remind us that rich Labour supporters, from the prime minister downwards, “go to elaborate lengths to send their children to state schools”. We know that.

We know, too, that many, from the prime minister downwards, employ private tutors to give their children that crucial examination edge. And we know that others, such as you, are happy to bang the socialist drum for the abolition of private schools until it comes to the education of their own child. Sickened, maybe; surprised, no. You are just the latest in a long line of hypocritical Labour politicians.

You ask us to applaud the courage of your decision. Hypocrisy apart, I do. You did what was right for your son knowing that your socialist colleagues would disapprove. Fine. What sticks in my throat is your attempt to portray yourself as the champion of inner-city education, the local MP who has single-handedly campaigned to draw attention to the educational underachievement of black boys and the underfunding of disadvantaged areas such as Hackney.

Hackney children do not underachieve because your government has failed to throw enough money at the problem. They fail because the government has not had the courage to confront the vested interests, ideological and bureaucratic, that you exemplify so perfectly.

You dismiss the failed attempt to privatise Hackney’s education services and, yes, it did fail. Why? Because you and your socialist colleagues succeeded in persuading David Blunkett, education secretary at the time, to cobble together a half-hearted, half-baked privatisation scheme that was bound to fail.

I remember talking to Tony Blair about Hackney soon after the 1997 election. He needed, I said, to eliminate both the bureaucracy and waste and the silliness of the progressive educational theories that guaranteed underachievement.

A year or two later I spoke to the North Islington branch of the Labour party. The teachers in the audience stated that the government’s literacy strategy meant they no longer had time to teach creativity. The parents erupted. Creativity could wait. They wanted their children to learn to read and they were sick to death of the professionals and the politicians, local and national, who were always so convinced that they knew best.

You know best, don’t you, Diane? You really believe that Hackney’s educational problems stem from the abolition of the Inner London Education Authority. You really think that more money is the answer. You are really proud, aren’t you, of the fact that you have “campaigned around black underachievement for the best part of a decade”? The truth is that your campaigns have distracted attention from what needs to be done. Black boys are failing for much the same reasons as white working-class boys are failing. They are not learning to read. Expectations are too low. Discipline is too lax. We need less hot air and more action. It is not rocket science. There are already head teachers in London schools who are raising standards in an extremely impressive way. The challenge is to replicate their success, not to enhance your reputation as a black politician.

You have been Hackney’s MP for more than 15 years and a teacher at your son’s school tells you that she would not dream of sending her child to a secondary school in Hackney. Do you really think that it is everybody else’s fault? Do you never wake up in the night and ask yourself what you have actually achieved? You tell us that you have failed too often as a mother, sacrificing your son’s interests to your Westminster ambitions. Now you have jettisoned the socialist principles that fuelled those ambitions. You are left with your hypocrisy.

The many Hackney parents who cannot afford the fees at the City of London school must wonder why they bothered to vote for an MP who protests so shrilly and delivers so little.