The expansion of private schools is likely to provoke mixed feelings for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

They may like to take credit for the increases in wealth that have swelled the ranks of the middle classes and turned private education from an aspiration to a reality for millions of people over the past decade.

MORI polling shows that nearly half of parents (48 per cent) would send their child to a private school if they could afford to because they believe that standards are higher than in the state sector (which they are). So widening access to independent schools may in one sense be regarded as a success.

But the fact that standards have not been lifted sufficiently in the state sector to make it a more attractive option for these same parents can only be seen as a massive failure.

For the best of motives, the Prime Minister has tried to drive up school standards, increasing real-term spending on schools by more than 60 per cent to £34.5 billion a year. But his emphasis on national tests and league tables as the way to do this has been problematic.

Academic standards have risen but state school heads now focus on academic results to the exclusion of virtually all other aspects of learning. This is not necessarily what parents want. MORI polling shows that, until the age of 14, what parents most want from their child’s school is good discipline and a safe environment.

As Alan Smithers, of Buckingham University, notes, independent schools have benefited from their freedom to ignore Mr Blair’s strictures. Most have abandoned tests compulsory for 11 and 14-year-olds in the state sector. “They also focus on what parents want – that is teaching children how to lead their lives, how to take responsibility for themselves and to develop,” Professor Smithers said.

The Blair administration is also a victim of its own success. Ben Page, of MORI, notes that as society has become more economically and socially polarised and the middle classes have become richer they almost feel a sense of duty to send their children to independent schools to ensure that they mix with the “right” people.

“Middle-class parents will have to earn an extra £15,000 to £20,000 to send their children to private school. They choose to spend it on school fees rather than cars and foreign holidays because it absolves them of all guilt – if anything goes wrong with little Johnny’s life later on, they can at least say to themselves, ‘Well, at least I didn’t f*** him up by sending him to state school’ ,” Mr Page said.

The Government has tried in vain to counter these trends with its emphasis on parental choice and diversity of state provision through the introduction of academies and trust and specialist schools. The other line of defence for the state system is the claim that selection has been abolished. Nobody believes this. The premium on house prices in the catchment areas of the best state schools is evidence enough.

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