Blair's speech, a logical development from his and Harriet Harman's choice of grammar schools for their own children, paid lip service to comprehensive education. But his attack on the blanket application of mixed ability teaching-a method barely practised since the 1960's-was a shameless lurch to the right.
In fact the most recent survey of comprehensive schooling has shown it to be a huge success story, with the biggest successes in Scotland where the comprehensive system is most developed. It has also shown that despite Blair's concessions, Thirty years ago there was a wave of popular support for the end of selective education: here Liverpool schoolgirls show their backing grouping pupils by ability is no guarantee of improved exam results.
Blair's speech had little to do with education and everything to do with his political plans. As one Labour MP told the Evening Standard, this latest policy shift seems like another loyalty test, to check how much further to the right MP's will allow Blair and Co. to go.
Focusing the debate on the abstractions of teaching methods rather than on the grim realities in today's crumbling classrooms, enables Blair's team to slide away from the crucial questions of funding and teachers' jobs.
Without more cash for schools to retain and increase their staffing levels and hold down class sizes, none of the available teaching methods will deliver quality education.
Blair's latest comments have been correctly critisied by Doug McAvoy of the National Union of Teachers. The NUT must now implement is own conterence decision to call a national demonstration this autumn, piling on pressure for Labour to adopt a progressive policy on education in the run-up to the general election.