However, by this time the ILEA was in thrall to progressive education and hated Boyson's school where pupils sang "Jerusalem" and the National Anthem on prize day. They also resented its academic record: in 1978, Highbury Grove pupils achieved 220 O-level passes and 40 A-level passes, compared to just 22 O-level passes and two A-level passes at Islington Green Comprehensive. Boyson left the school in 1974 to become a Conservative MP, and the ILEA made repeated attempts to kill off the school's old-fashioned approach. In 1987, Boyson's chosen successor retired and a progressive head, Peter Searl, took over. He banned assemblies, introduced mixed ability teaching, emphasised the "struggle for social justice" in the school curriculum, and encouraged pupils to call him Pete. In 1991, a visiting inspector commented on bad behaviour, poor punctuality and unsatisfactory lessons.

By 1996, Islington reportedly had the worst GCSE results for any local authority in the country. Few were surprised when Islington resident and Labour Party leader Tony Blair refused to send his sons to the local secondary school. Instead, he sent his sons eight miles across London to the Oratory in Fulham, a Catholic school known for its traditionalist ethos. Even former Islington Council leader Margaret Hodge made a similar concession, sending her children across the boundary to a school in Camden. In 1996, the Sunday Times sent a reporter to Islington to find out why the top brass of the Labour Party were avoiding their local schools. He reported: "The progressive ideologies of the 1960s . . . are still very much alive in [Tony Blair's] back yard."

Progressive education was not a passing fad of the Seventies. In schools across Britain, ideas which were once radical and revolutionary had by now become ubiquitous. Chris Pryce, the Liberal Democrat leader of the opposition at Islington Council, reported in 1996: "The people running Islington schools believe that personal achievement, especially in exams, is ‘middle-class' and therefore suspect, and that failure of individual children should not be recognised because it is ‘discriminatory'."

Most shocking of all, the school system that trendy lefties had designed for other people's children during the 1970s did not seem so appealing when it came to their own families. Pryce conducted his own research and found as few as 10 per cent of Islington homeowners were now sending their children to the local schools. This was particularly the case with secondary education; by 1998, more than a third of Islington primary school pupils departed the borough for their secondary education. The affluent liberals of N1 were finding escape routes via London faith schools, or simply going private. This hypocrisy was not lost on Islington resident Andrew (now Lord) Adonis. His excellent account of reforming England's schools, Education, Education, Education (Biteback), frankly states that by the 1990s Islington schools were "terrible". He recounts his role as a governor of George Orwell School on the borough's Haringey border. Under "Fresh Start", an early New Labour scheme where failing schools were given a large financial grant to relaunch themselves, George Orwell was rebranded Islington Arts and Media School.

According to Adonis, this was "not a happy experience". The refurbishment was poorly managed, Islington Council refused to let the school have an academic specialism, and the bloated governing body split into moderate and left-wing factions. Shortly after the school reopened, there was a near riot with racial overtones, causing the arrival of the police and the school's temporary closure. Adonis learnt a valuable lesson: "The local authority which had allowed George Orwell School to fail so badly over so many years was hardly likely to be successful in managing its relaunch."