Sanitary Measures

Enthusiasts of the Archbishop of Canterbury's moral fibre, social insight and intellectual gravitas will doubtless remember this, where he argued that, since the Government's aim is to restrict real education to the children of those who can pay for it while leaving the dregs to churches and charities, "it simply cannot be said that [faith] schools somehow have a policy of sanitising or segregating". It seems likely that he meant only Church of England schools, since these presumably practise a higher and deeper level of non-exclusivity than those of inferior religions; still, this does not appear to bode well. A state-maintained Jewish school in north-west London has rejected a boy for being the wrong sort of Jew, and the high court has ruled that it had every right under the law to do so. The policy, said Mr Justice Munby, is not materially different from Muslim schools favouring Muslims or Catholic schools favouring Catholics. Schools are required to "try to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination and promote equality of opportunity and good race relations"; but religious discrimination - viz. a policy of sanitising or segregating on the part of faith schools - is not unlawful.

Oh, I almost forgot. I told you so.