Paulsops Fables and Fairy Tales: The fairest of them all.

The Evil Witch looked in to her magic mirror and uttered those immortal words "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?".

The Evil Witch did not feel she really need to ask - as she knew she had taken actions to ensure she got exactly the answer that she wanted. So asking now was just a vanity thing, she did it so she could hear the mirror say the words that she so loved to hear.

Years before, The Evil Witch had come up with a cunning plan to be 'fairest of them all' with no effort on her part. Instead of making herself fairer than everyone else, she simply had to 'remove' anyone who was more fair - this would leave her as the 'fairest one of them all' and no one could dispute it without the risk being 'removed' themselves.

So The Evil Witch had enchanted thousands of henchmen and instructed them to go forth and butcher and destroy anything more fair than herself - that was a lot of destruction and butchering!

So when The Evil Witch uttered those immortal words, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all", she knew the response she would get... at least she thought she did... but it was not to be, the answer that came back instead was:

"Shirley Williams, you evil witch, your comprehensive schools are not the fairest of them all, for a few grammar schools still exist and are expanding".

The Evil Witch was enraged that her orders for destruction had not been fully carried out, but dare not show it as it might create doubt in the minds of her enchanted followers - some of whom were now quite senior and had come to genuinely believe that not only were comprehensives 'the fairest' of what remained, but were 'fair' in an absolute sense - or at least this is what some of them (rather implausibly) claimed to believe.

What did The Evil Witch and her evil followers do? The answer to this, gentle reader, will have to wait for another day, when the Kent satellite Grammar schools situation is resolved and we shall see if The Evil Witch and her evil plan prevails, or if the people seize the opportunity to free their land from her evil, twisted spell so their children do not have to suffer as they did, but can learn, grow and prosper with social mobility once more, as previous generations had.