Melissa Benn reviews Francis Beckett's The Great City Academy Fraud in The Guardian
and shows that at least one of Tony' s children was listening to what their parents were saying, although in Melissa's case, I suspect Caroline was the greater influence.

Beckett elegantly demolishes the key myths about these shiny new palaces for the urban poor. Originally a Tory idea, ferociously condemned by Labour in the 1980s, city academies went on to become one of Blair's late obsessions. Private sponsors - whether businessmen, militant church leaders or now, in a recent twist worthy of Kafka, local authorities - can gain control of a school for scandalously little capital and so free themselves from many of the regulations that govern the maintained sector.

But are they any good? A few academies have had solid enough results (often helped by their greater freedoms regarding admissions and exclusions), but the majority seem set to go the way of the old secondary moderns: vocational institutions soullessly geared to directly meeting local employers' needs. Either way, they destroy one of the fundamental principles of the comprehensive ideal: that every child should have access to a broad-based education until their late teens.

We have come full circle back to the philanthropic values of the 19th century, in which, according to Clement Attlee, "Charity is always apt to be accompanied by a certain complacency and condescension on the part of the benefactor ... which cuts at the root of all true friendliness". Beckett puts it more baldly: "Effectively, local authorites were ... told: give up your power to any business mogul who wants an academy on your patch, or we will starve your area of education funding."

In their very different ways, both these books stand as sound descriptions of new Labour's educational achievement - or lack of it - over 10 years. On the one hand, a great deal of money was spent, with some undoubtedly good results; on the other, we have seen an intensification of social, ethnic and faith difference, particularly in our big cities. The terrifying spectre of US-style segregation beckons.

Beckett concludes by making a passionate case for the restoration of the link between education provision and local, democratically elected bodies. As for the role of the rich and powerful in our schools, they should follow Attlee's advice and "pay their taxes gladly". Of course, such a path brings no particular political honour. Or honours. But then, in recent years it has often seemed that academy sponsorship has attracted fewer plaudits than it has visits from the police. Who knows? The old man's suggestion might provoke sighs of relief all round.