This article outlines Labour ideals and values, and demonstrates the tensions between egalitarian and meritocratic imperatives for the reform agendas Labour governments pursued in office and the educational settlements reached. It challenges 'common sense' interpretations of elites and elite education and fixed 'ability' thinking, and promotes the key principle of human educability, helping to show the importance of historical memory for understanding how unfair educational separation entrenches inequality. In so doing, it seeks to advance an agenda for action to develop an alternative to the current institutional forms of schooling, one which would establish community comprehensive education for everybody.