A dilemma for some holding centre-left views is that they believe in the principle of state education for all, but feel an obligation to their children to send them to the best school possible. Some conclude that sending their children privately would not happen in an ideal world ("if only the government delivered on its promise of a first class education system") but that here and now they have to go private.

Others choose to send their children to state schools, some of them rather sanctimoniously telling anyone who will listen about how they made a sacrifice in order to stand up for their principles.

Of course, these wealthy middle-class leftists who send their children to state schools do not send them to failing schools. They send them to the very best ones. The consequence is that they take up places that would have otherwise been taken by less well off children. By refusing to go private, they make other children have a worse education. Of course, they have paid for state education through their taxes, so they have a legitimate claim to it. But all the sanctimony about promoting the greater good is a bit much.