01-07-2025
Private education is one of Britain's best exports – now it's being destroyed
'It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies,' wrote CS Lewis.
'The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.'
It is hard to think of a more fitting description of our government. With the parliamentary omnipotence of a huge majority, the moral busybodies wasted no time in attacking the one British institution which can quite legitimately claim to be the envy of the world: our independent schools.
An impressive 35 British public schools were featured in Spear's Schools Index of the top 100 institutions in the world this year.
The list, which was overwhelmingly dominated by the United Kingdom, far ahead of rivals such as the United States and Switzerland, is compiled on the basis of the institutions' 'academic prowess, their range of social, cultural, and pastoral offerings and their international reputation'.
