It is not my contention that comprehensive schools are necessarily useless. There is a charm in the idea of educating the members of a community together. But the purposes of that education cannot be reduced to a string of mushy platitudes, framed in such a way that nobody is offended and hardly anyone falls short. Nor, now that we are taking steps to tighten things up, can we achieve this by setting targets. Five good GCSEs are no doubt preferable to five bad GCSEs, but that sort of approach leads if we are not careful to a barren utilitarianism, with every moral or spiritual consideration forgotten in a race to see who can jump through the largest number of utterly tedious hoops: a death of the soul which can afflict fee-paying schools too, as selfish parents urge their over-burdened children  forward.

The gentleman has retired from the fray, but we still need an ideal of good conduct: something that is not the same as Christian behaviour, but which helps to raise us above boorish self-seeking; an ideal which includes modesty, magnanimity and the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the sake of others, especially those who are weaker.