A guest Channel 5 favourite Alexis Conran & Friends lashed out at a Labour MP’s “ridiculous” claim that Prince George’s next school should be a state one, arguing: “Mum and Dad know best.”
Jenny Powell hit back after Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich, had once said the youngster’s father should send George to a state school to further his development.
But as the Alexis Conran & Friends panel debated the topic of George’s next school, the former Wheel of Fortune host criticised the stance by saying the scrutiny the future monarch would face going to a state institution would be too intense.
Joining the discussion, Powell said it was “ridiculous”, continuing: “I mean what the heck!”
She noted: “I mean you’ve got to think about it. When you’re choosing schools for your kids, it’s got to be the right one and I think Mum and Dad know best.
“But imagine Prince George at the school gates with the rest of us. It’s just not going to happen. And I also think that he would be under scrutiny all the time.”
Host Conran quickly fired back that George would be “under scrutiny all the time, regardless of which school he attends”.
However, Powell finished: “Not like that – not if you are Prince George going into a state school? No chance. The scrutiny and the pressure I think he’d experience in those sort of crucial years as well, it’s just an outrageous thing to say.”
Last year Lewis said “there’s an argument to be made” for George to go to a state school as opposed to Eton, though added it was “a matter for his parents”.
He added: “He is a future king and I would suggest that at a state school he would rub shoulders with a much broader cross-section of his future subjects than he would at Eton.”
It came as Labour said it had discussed the “optics” of George following in his father’s footsteps and attend Eton. At the time, the discussion was had amid a widespread belief within the party that it would be in Government after this year’s election – and wanted to work out if William could be “nudged” into putting George into a different school.
However, it is believed that the Princess of Wales would likely veto such a move as she wishes to have her eldest son attend a co-educational school like Marlborough College.
Fees there reach around £42,500. George, alongside his sister Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis attend the £12,000-a-year Lambrook School in Windsor, known as a feeder school for Eton.
