THE government’s own Social Mobility Commission has attacked Tory MP Robert Halfon’s attempt to say the reason poor white kids do poorly at school is because teachers care too much about black and Asian kids.

Halfon’s education select committee issued a report this June about poor school performance of white pupils who get free school meals: this is a very real problem as poor kids, especially in small towns, have been neglected, and don’t do well at school. 

Thanks largely to previous Labour governments, some efforts to improve school performance of the poorest kids has paid off in London and other big cities. But less well-off kids in towns and smaller cities – often poor white kids – still do very badly.