Alex Massie Alex Massie

More Mail Fail: Clegg Edition

Apparently the print edition of the Mail on Sunday screams “Hypocrisy” because Nick Clegg, though not a believer himself, is not averse to sending his eldest child to be educated at the (catholic) London Oratory.

Like you, dearest reader, I look forward to the Mail opposing school choice. The online version of this nonsense does its best to be faux-outraged with “Why is atheist Nick Clegg considering sending his son to the same exclusive school as the Blairs?” It is not clear whether the atheism or the Blair connection is the more pernicious.

Never mind that Clegg’s wife is catholic and the children are being brought up as catholics. Never mind either that the Clegg kids already attend catholic primary schools and that even the Mail on Sunday hasn’t found a reason to consider that disreputable. Which would, in turn, lead one to suspect that the party guilty of double-standards is the newspaper, not the poor Cleggs.

The paper’s complaint seems to be that the Cleggs should send their son to be educated at the school nearest their house, regardless of their estimation of its abilities. I’d be interested, I must say, in knowing how many senior Mail executives send their children to the nearest comprehensive and if the paper will now oppose the establishment of free schools on the grounds that they may take kids away from their nearest school.

Don’t hold your breath on that front. Unless you want to die.

PS: No, I don’t believe that the Cleggs need be held hostage by the Liberal Democrats’ stupid policies.

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