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Today Chancellor Philip Hammond will set aside £320million for new free schools – many of which will be grammar schools.

Which is odd because last week I looked at a map which showed cuts mean my son’s secondary school is to lose more than half a million pounds and 12 teachers in the next two years.

And my younger children’s little primary school will lose £400 per pupil and four teachers over the same time.

What can all this mean?

Oh, I see…

It means Theresa May , for all her fine words about opportunity, cares less about my kids than she does a load of others.

And if your kids or grandkids are at an ordinary state school right now, they’re pretty low down her list of priorities too.

You can find out exactly how far down by going to schoolcuts.org.uk and see the size of the axe hovering above their school.

But no such concerns for the lucky grammar school hopefuls.

For them millions have been found to ensure a school life of boundless budgets, small class sizes and top notch resources.

This has absolutely nothing to do with pupil opportunity. And everything to do with political opportunism.

It’s the clearest attempt yet to mop up those voters too embarrassed to back pants-on-fire Paul Nuttall but still looking for a party which will promise to recreate 1952 with its grammars and gumdrops and genial xenophobia.

If I thought for one moment grammar schools would increase opportunities for kids from ordinary homes

(Image: Getty)

above and beyond what our current comprehensive system does, I’d be their greatest proponent. It won’t.

Grammar schools will continue to do what they’ve always done – be overpopulated by mediocre middle-class kids who have already had the very best experiences and environment their parents can offer.

And most often a ton of expensive tutoring too.

Excluded will be the kids whose parents either can’t or can’t be bothered to do those things. So they are penalised again.

Right now, just 3% of grammar school kids are on free school meals – compared with almost 15% in non-grammar schools.

Oh, and 13% of grammar school kids have previously attended private schools. And while kids from low income families may do slightly better than the national average if they make a local grammar school, their mates who go to the local comp will do slightly worse than the national average.

So selective education is actively damaging the prospects of those kids already at the bottom of the pile.

Social mobility in Britain is over. We’re in a state of social paralysis where it is harder than ever for bright and hard-working kids to fly.

An “I’m Alright Jack” elite have created a structure of schools, private tutoring, internships and universities all coated in that anti-climb paint they use to keep yobs out.

And have not a scintilla of doubt, the extension of grammar schools is another slimy plank of that structure.