Ruth Kelly's decision to purchase educational provision from the private sector for her son who has special educational needs is yet another sign of New Labour hypocrisy.
One of the Kelly's justifications for this decision is that she wants the best for her child, but in reality which parents do not want the best for their children? I know I do.
The fact is that she is getting it because she has the money whilst the vast majority of ordinary working people do not because they have no money to spare. This is a travesty. Why can they not get it? Is one of the reasons being what she knows already, that is, the help doesn't exist in the state system either partially or at all?
I interestingly heard a mother on the radio the other day who stated that to appeal the decision of her local education authority who would not statement her child, she had to attend a tribunal and pay for her own expert witnesses.
She won and succeeded in getting what her child needed despite the resistance of the purse holder. Her child had the same problems as the Kelly child. In both cases, this is something a parent would do their best to address.
She went on to say that what had annoyed her was not that Ms Kelly had done what she had, but that she had not gone through the experience that the lady had to endure herself, and as such will never be able to appreciate what it was like.
I cannot see how this Minister can now sit in judgment of anyone who has to battle through the system that we all have to use in order to get what is best for our children - or our parents, or our disabled relatives, or hospital treatment, or access to resources of any kind - when she went as far as she did to avoid this burden.
It is hypocrisy at the highest level. Kelly and this government know it is so.
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