MIDDLE CLASSES RULE OK

So ministers have put forward their "clarifications" to the schools White Paper (no "concessions" or "compromises" please, spin doctors may take offence).
They hope all the clarifying will win over the critics on their own side while insisting that the core elements of their "historic" plan remain intact.
Yet there was something approaching a shrug of resignation in the Prime Minister's tone today, on one key point at least.
Ministers acknowledge that middle class parents too often work the current system to their advantage, colonising the best schools and leaving the worst to those with less influence.
The Government has consistently claimed that the White Paper will help children from the poorest families in the most deprived areas of the country.
But Mr Blair told MPs at this morning's Commons Liaison Committee meeting: “Whatever system you put in place, middle-class parents will try to do the best for their kids.
"You can move house in the end, and who could blame them?
“We all want to do the best for our children."
(Incidentally, he was also questioned over his own decision to send his two eldest children to the Catholic London Oratory school, which won a legal case to continue interviewing prospective parents but will lose this right thanks to the concessions - I mean clarifications - announced last night.)
Ruth Kelly detailed the package of changes to the White Paper in a late night letter to Barry Sheerman, the chairman of the Commons education select committee, yesterday.
But while Ms Kelly agreed to a surprising number of demands from the committee for altering the plans, she refused their most direct suggestion for getting more working class children into good schools - quotas.
Or "benchmarks" as the committee called them.
Just as universities are set "benchmarks" for the proportion of state school students they could reasonable be expected to admit every year, so schools should also be given such loose targets to aim for, the committee said.
Mr Blair dismissed the idea of "social engineering" to break the stranglehold of the middle classes on the best schools.
And Ms Kelly said "quotas" would not be appropriate.
But there is another option which has won some support in influential circles.
Getting into a good school has been described as "a postcode lottery". Why not make it a real one?
The select committee proposed making admissions "anonymous", hinting at the idea of a ballot to allocate places in over-subscribed schools.
One of Mr Blair's confidants and a consistent champion of disadvantaged children, Sir Peter Lampl, publicly backed the ballot idea two weeks ago.
Now that really would be a bold and radical gesture towards making school admissions fair to all families, not just those well educated and wealthy enough to work the system - perhaps a little too fair. Maybe a shrug in this direction is all the Government can afford.