There is no problem as such with grammar schools and selection by ability. The problem is the existence of grammar schools in a dominant comprehensive education culture.

Where a grammar school exists in a comprehensive county, the parents have to make a special effort to familiarise their child with the 11+ test. In other words, the better-off pay for tutors.

Even in counties that still select at age 11 like Buckinghamshire, primary schools no longer focus on passing the 11+ because it doesn't fit with the national education culture. So again, parents (the better off ones) increasingly use private tutors.

Cameron/Willetts have chosen the 'obvious' way out of this conundrum rather than the right way. Their traditional supporters, many in Conservative seats, will be angry as a result.

Terry Smith, Amersham, Bucks

Is this the 'clause 4' moment ? - i.e. their following the 'NuLab' - Dummies guide step by step to Victory at General Elections, Whatever next ?

M A Patel, Yorkshire, England

If a City Academy is oversubscribed how does Mr Willetts propose to allow Heads to select their intake?

harryjustharry, clevedon, U.K.

The government refuses to recognise that differrent people require a differrent education.

Not only that but if we are among the majority for which it is unsuitable we have to pay for it anyway.

This is not a minor matter. Not many people want to send their children to a school where they will be bullied or knifed or the teacher cannot he heard. Unlike Labour Ministers and the PM not many can afford to pay twice.

Brian Gilbert, HAMPTON, Middx

As previously mentioned, Tony is to step down to be replaced by either Brown of the labour party, or Cameron of the new lefty, caring, huggy, pc, luvvie...........tony clone party...........I have never missed voting in my life, but I might as well stay at home for the next election

Rob

Robin Davies, Huddersfield, UK

So now we know parties that will contest the next election

Gordon Brown's Labour Party and David Cameron's New Labour Party!

Labour Free South, Kent , England

Again, I have to agree with the other views expressed. I am an 11-plus failure but managed to enter a grammar school at the age of 15 and it was vital to my future professional success. The major problem was the rigidity of the 11-plus and the lack of developing technical and vocational alternative education that was part of the 1944 Act. I also taught briefly in a Comprehensive school during the mid-60s and witnessed even then what a mistake this system was Comprehensives should be abolished and the original intentions of the 1944 involving the equal status of grammar, technical and vocational schools restored.

Although I'm not a Conservative supporter, dropping this important tenet is a really big mistake

Tony Williams, Carbondale, Il. USA

Grammar schools in those areas dominated by the middle class might not work but they certainly would do in the poorest and most deprived areas where crime in schools and the local area is high. Where the middle classes don't reside - in the poorest areas - then they cannot dominate and the grammar school is surely a winner. It has also been proven that ethnic minorities achieve more when in a selective education system - aiding integration. We need to taylor the type of education to individual areas rather than having one generic school system. I would be intrigued to know how many Conservative MPs actually support this bizarre and total abandonment of a system that is not without merit.

Eamonn Hurley-Flynn, London,

Thanks Dave, from someone who has re-mortgaged to try and ensure his kids get a decent education instead of "bog standard", you have now given me a reason not to ever vote for the tories as long as you are leader.

Nick Quigley, walasey, England

I came from a poor working class background on a hill farm in the North. A dedicated state primary school staff enabled me to gain a place at grammar school and then university to qualify as a doctor and serve forty years in the Army. Free school meals had nothing to do with it- only aspiration, enterprise, and sacrifice by family and the dedication of educational mentors. Little has changed and many in the North West will be convinced the Tory party is totally out of touch.

Dr M J Tinsley, Newark, Notts,

Now who do I vote for?? I was a child from an ordinary 'working class' background who was lucky enough to escape from my local failing comprehensive (where I was being taken out of class to teach older pupils how to read) into the local grammar. Now I am a lawyer earning a 6 figure salary.

To drop this basic tenet of conservative policies strikes me as merely a pandering to the chattering classes of Islington. It will not attract disaffected Labour voters nor will it endear the Tories to their core membership, large numbers of whom like me benefited beyond measure from selective Grammar education.

Go figure, as our American cousins would say.

Jay, London,

Who was it that said the Conservative Party was the stupid party?

Desmond Taylor, Houston, USA Texas

Absolute joke. I'm from a northern, working class family. I went to a grammar school and now I'm at Oxford. We need that sort of social mobility and we need more grammar schools to allow it.

Andy, Oxford,

Basing an argument on how many "free school meals" are signed up to is disingenous. Look instead at the results of the Grammar Schools. The children that go to these schools work hard to get there and continue working hard to achieve such results - all children should have such an opportunity, not just those lucky enough to live in the catchment area of such schools. Does Cameron really not want to win the next election? He seems to be trying very hard to make things more difficult for himself. This will be without doubt a big vote loser.

David Matthews, Bucks, UK

As a vote loser this is without parallel.

bil thomas, ringdon,

Sneaky.

Mark, Woking, UK