So Ralph Tabberer, ex Director of the Training and Development Agency, has finally struck out for Damascus. In the Daily Telegraph he criticises the state secondary system for inverted snobbery….We have tried a comprehensive system and that is not working…The clock's ticking. Everybody else is catching up because they haven't got the same struggle to reconcile fairness and excellence….How do you make that the focus of education, and also the development of character, to turn out people who know the difference between right and wrong? In a reference to the need for the state sector to show a little humility and learn from the private sector he added that we are failing to spend enough time at the moment arguing about scholarship, genuinely high quality study and its importance. Having been saying exactly that, ever since I left working in the private sector for business a decade ago, in all sorts of educational places and contexts, I can assure Ralph he is in for a rough ride!

Yet he understates the issue hugely. When Tony Blair chanted “Education, education, education” it was as fine an example of the spin historians will relish poring over as the hallmark of New Labour, as you will ever hear, because what he really meant was, “Fairness, fairness, fairness.” (And apologies Matthew (Taylor) if you actually wrote that speech.)

But leveling the playing field is still what motivates thousands of teachers who nonetheless genuinely believe they are educators, working in schools all across the UK today. In classrooms and on sports fields, “teachers” will be making little decisions about who competes for which team, who gets the big part in the school play, who gets to go on a visit, purely on the basis of “fairness.” For many of them ability, enthusiasm, responsibility, aspiration, knowledge or educational need will have nothing to do with it.

I can hardly wait to hear what transpires on tonight’s Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4 having frequently been on the receiving end of the inverted snobbery Ralph Tabberer talks about I fully expect to hear a lot more envy than altruism. I also hope someone exposes Howard Gardner’s wholly unproven "multiple intelligences" agenda, which has precious little to do with education and is all about leveling the playing field.

The Telegraph’s piece also carries this comment from a DCSF spokesman: “We make no apology for making closing the social gap an absolute priority.” So I guess he hasn’t read any of this research has he!