Letter: Comprehensives only work when everyone joins in

BOB HEWETT roundly condemned those excusers of Tony Blair's decision to send his son to a selective school (Letters, 21 January). The apparent hypocrisy of the Labour leader, and now Harriet Harman, is not as clear as it might seem.

We all have to make do with a Tory-designed, Tory-run country; if a Labour MP sent her son to, say, a private school under a Labour government that would indeed justify an uproar - but perhaps even this assumption needs examining. All I demand from a politician is an ability to govern well - regardless of the choices they make in their private life. John Major is a flawless person who makes an execrable Prime Minister: I'd rather have a hypocrite.

Peter Clasen

Manchester