Christine Odone’s piece in today’s Telegraph on the relationship between Labour and faith schools is a devastating account of how that party in the UK has conducted an ideological war against religious schools. 

Odone points out that there is a “substantial secularist wing” of the Labour party which “regards faith schools as an elitist mind-control experiment, the product of a powerful coterie of religious bigots and snooty middle-class parents”. 

However, she adds that, in a wider sense, Labour’s campaign against faith schools is “puzzling”. 

Odone writes: “Until the 19th century, churches and religious charities were the only providers of education in this country. Those schools, with their endowments, scholarships and sense of mission, were the sole promoters of social mobility – the very ingredient that Labour claims is crucial to a more equitable society”. 

Such schools, 7,000-odd of them, she continues “still offer an escalator to better opportunities”. In England, for example, 17 of the 25 top-ranking schools are faith schools. Faith schools, she points out, account for a third of primary schools, but make up almost two-thirds of the top 209 primaries. 

Odone adds: “For low-income parents, faith schools are the best hope for a good education; an academically successful secular state school quickly transforms its catchment area into a middle-class enclave of high-priced houses. Few low-income families can hope to buy into such an area, but selection by property prices is sanctioned by Labour.”