Do you think you can be a socialist and

[Swedes]

1. Pay for your child to be independently educated?
2. Buy a house in right catchment for the right school?
3. Feign religion to get your child into a faith school?
4. Object to a lottery system for school places with urban areas (ignoring all convenient environmental issues)?
5. Vote Tory? (because some people seem particularly confused)

Nope but, it might be argued that you can't be a socialist and vote labour nowadays aswell.

No

No

Not really. I've done 2 and 4, baulk at 3, would have internal debate about 1, am not ruling 5 in or out. But then I've never claimed to be any sort of socialist!

I bet plenty of Grauniad readers can and do though.

No of course not. Many will claim to be though. I know I'm not a socialist.

No

John Mortimer wouldn't even look at state schools for his kids. His wife (Penny?) said "I thought you were a socialist?" to which his riposte was "being a socialist doesn't mean playing Russian Roulette with your own children's education."

I liked the dodginess of that so much that I nicked it for my book.

My mother has strong socialist tendencies and paid for our education, but I'm sure she could argue her left wing reasons for doing so.

I do consider myself to be, and I haven't done any of those things (yet..though if I ever do the last one I will be totally disgusted with myself). However, before I start sounding too smug and self-satisfied, I think it is probably easy for me to stick to these principles in leafy Bucks. And if DD fails 11+ we may have a problem! (Only half joking...)

Surely being a socialist CAN mean playing RR with your kids' education, if RR is what is being played with everyone else's kids' education?

John Mortimer was a champagne socialist wasn't he?

Champagne for all!

I read the Guardian AND I send my children to private school and have never voted Tory.

[cracks open the bollinger]

Oh, it does. But I imagine the "truly" socialist answer is that you don't consider it to be Russian Roulette, because it's the system, after all, which you wanted in the first place?

Think you can be a socialist and do the odd 'unsocialist' thing probably..

None of those things are what I would call particularly socialist, but I know people who have done 2 for example and/or 4 and are definately still socialists.

Not 5 though, no way can you be a socialist and vote Tory, that's just crazy-talk

Nooo, I think it can certainly be Russian Roulette even if you truly madly deeply believe in it; just like the NHS. But everyone is in the same boat and no-one gets an advantage (or disadvantage, depending on how you feel about the merits of private education )that lasts a lifetime just because they have parents who are prepared and able to pay.

That's kind of what I was trying to say, spockster; whether it is or it isn't Russian Roulette, as a socialist you don't have the moral high ground because you should believe in state education. That's why I have little time for hypocrites like Ruth Kelly and Diane Abbott.

Sorry there's a sixth question, especially for Sprockster, can you be a socialist and move to Buckinghamshire?

By the beard of Marx NO!

What are you some sort of neo-con????

Isn't buying a house in the right catchment area buying an advantage which others may not be able to afford. What is the difference between that an independent education, morally? At least with independent education you don't burden the state with the cost of your advantage.

Well, socialism is about wanting the means of production to be owned by the community at large. I think you can believe in that, and yet at the same time recognise the limitations of the world as it currently exists. I don't think there's anything particularly socialist about refusing to buy a house in the catchment area of a good school, for instance.

I do think private education is pretty much a no-no.

Faith schools - not particularly unsocialist, I think? I mean, this is socialism, not communism - there's a fine tradition of Christian socialism.

Tory - well, you could vote Tory if they were advocating socialist principles. I briefly thought about voting Tory when Michael Howard talked about wages for housework.

Ask Diane Abbott
or
Tony Blair
or
Ruth Kelly
or
Harriet Harmen

I suppose because people have all sorts of reasons for moving house, and the school is only part of the package. Moving house "out to the suburbs" or "out to the country" is not a new phenomenon, and it's something a lot of people do by the time they have been earning a fair salary/wage for a while. It's only recently that moving for the school catchment has become a big thing.

League tables came in in 1992 (?) - and rthey played a big part in people's awareness - so I'd date it from the mid-90s as a phenomenon to be specifically analysed and criticised rather than just, you know, something people do when they have a decent job.

The encouragements (for good or ill) to mortgage ourselves to the hilt during the house-price boom of the last 15 years - only now slowly coming to an end - have exacerbated this desire.

Heated I assume you are saying that because none of them are socialists?

Swedes, we moved to Bucks for reasons totally unrelated to education, and failed to any research on the subject, in fact ended up in the catchment area of an OFSTED "Poor" school...do I get extra cool points for that? (Probably would not be able to haver afforded the house if it was in a better catchment).
I agree, buying a house for a school place is no different to buying a school place.
Regarding the Russian Roulette thing, that is surely about the quality of the education, not the politics of it. I accept that in the RR of the state system my child may get a poorer education than yours; in a truly socialist system maybe all would get the same, but that is not achievable in real life. It doesn't stop me living up to my politics, though!

Question no. 7) Your child is offered a free place at the fee-paying school. Do you accept or refuse if you are a socialist? And why?

Policywonk - I asked about the positive act of buying a house in the catchment not refusing to buy one in the catchement. Also, I asked about feigning religion in order to gain a place in a faith school.

Spockster -