THEY divide communities and damage lives, but their future is secure regardless - that is now both Labour and Conservative policy on grammar schools.

The astonishing aspect of the ongoing Tory row about selection is not that no more grammar schools will be built, because that was never going to happen anyway.

No, what's incredible - shocking, in fact - is that both parties agree the existing grammar schools are bad for education, but are too cowardly to take the logical step of abolishing them.

Before parents at North Yorkshire's three surviving grammars hit the roof, can I quickly point out I am not - for once - putting forward my own views here. I'm just reporting what our politicians say.

In the red corner, Education Secretary Alan Johnson has spoken passionately about the devastating impact on his own daughter of failing the 11-plus in Buckinghamshire.

In an interview last year, he said: "She was very bright but, well, probably life chances were lost then. So am I bitter about selection? Yes. I've seen what it does to kids."

Mr Johnson has now found a soulmate across in the blue corner, where his Tory shadow, David Willetts, last week described grammar schools as socially divisive.

Mr Willetts said: "The trouble is that the chances of a child from a poor background getting to a grammar school in those parts of the country where they do survive is shockingly low."

His boss, Conservative leader David Cameron, added: "Parents fundamentally do not want their children divided into sheep and goats at the age of 11."

Meanwhile, Tony Blair at questions in the Commons yesterday, said the argument for grammar schools was "from the stone age".

So, if both the big parties are agreed that grammar schools are a bad thing, they presumably plan to scrap them? Surely it's curtains for Ripon Grammar school, Skipton Girls' High School and Ermysteds Grammar School, also in Skipton. Errr, not exactly.

In an email earlier this year, Mr Johnson told Labour supporters it was simply not "realpolitik" to get rid of the 164 that remain.

He wrote: "Labour MPs in Slough, Kent and Gloucestershire et al would lose their seats if grammar schools were abolished." Perhaps he meant to add Wirral?

Equally, the Tories, faced with a grassroots backlash, are now rumoured to want to make it even more difficult for parents to force a referendum to abolish a grammar.

Labour calls it realpolitik, the Tories would call it parental choice.

Smells like naked hypocrisy to me.

THE sharp suits dominate at Westminster these days and the old left-right ideological clash is over until a debate is held on miners' compensation.

A trip down from the press gallery to hear MPs attack the double-charging of sick ex-pitmen by evil solicitors is a reminder that class war still bubbles away beneath the surface.

It was almost possible - almost - to feel sorry for Tory industry spokesman Jonathan Djanogly, the only Conservative present and faced with a dozen Labour MPs from mining areas.

He faced a constant barrage of interruptions and mutterings, pointing out the Tories' failure to do anything for miners in 18 years in office.

* looked up Mr Djanogly's profession when I got back upstairs. He's a solicitor.