A new era dawns for the grammar school Historians will look back on the closure of most of our grammar schools in the 1960s and 1970s and consider it an act of monumental folly. But it was more than that. It was vandalism, since the politicians knew what they were about. The education secretary in the 1964 Labour government was Tony Crosland, a self-appointed guardian of the socialist conscience, who hated selective education with an arrogance possible only in one whose parents could afford to send him to public school. His widow, Susan, recalled that he once vowed: "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every f------ grammar school in England. And Wales and Northern Ireland. Edward Heath's Conservative government, with Margaret Thatcher at the education department, carried on with this policy. Must this really be done in such an underhand way? It is to the Government's credit that it is determined to give parents greater access to the education that they want, and so it should also make it possible for new grammars to open. Whenever pollsters ask the public if they want new selective schools, 70 per cent or more say yes. When the last government gave campaigners the chance to shut down grammars through local referendums, people voted to keep them. Opponents say the Kent move might "open the floodgates" to more grammars in other regions. There would then be less competition for places at the limited number of such schools that already exist, and that currently require hopeful children to achieve almost perfect results in their entrance exams to get in. Furthermore, everyone knows that the grammar schools we lost - which at least selected by ability - have been replaced with private and comprehensive schools which select by parental wealth. I attended a grammar in Kent in an era when it seemed that a true meritocracy had taken root in the country. For the first time, prime ministers (Wilson, Heath, Thatcher) had been to state schools, as had many captains of industry, academics, surgeons, judges, generals and barristers. No longer were these positions dominated by the products of the public schools; and yet they are once more. Just look at the top of politics. Of course, there are terrific comprehensives that maintain the standards that were once the preserve of the grammar or independent sector, but they are selective, too - by catchment area. If the new dispensation allows for a plurality of establishments - free schools, academies, comprehensives, independent - then why not new grammar schools? The limitations of the old system - which badly let down those who failed their 11-plus - are removed if other schools provide a good education for children who are not among the most intellectually gifted. We are happy in this country to see the young creamed off to elite institutions if they are brilliant footballers or fabulous musicians, but not if they are academic high-achievers. This is ridiculous. Periodically, we beat our collective national breast over why working class kids no longer become prime minister or head of a merchant bank. Yet suggest to a politician that this might have something to do with the near demise of the grammar schools over the past 40 years and expect a withering gaze and a disappointed shake of the head - surely you must know they are not the answer to our educational woes? And, indeed, they are not the whole answer. But half a century after the last new grammar school opened its doors, they should be part of the solution once again.