By Mike Baker BBC education correspondent

Although comprehensives began as a cross-party local authority initiative, politically they are forever associated with the Labour governments which pushed hard in the 1960s and 1970s to replace the post-war, two-tier system of grammar and secondary modern schools.

But Tony Blair's government is uncomfortable with the ideological baggage which it sees as allied to comprehensive education, particularly the belief in "mixed-ability" teaching and, as one commentator put it, the idea that "all must have prizes".

Might it not be better for them to have real choices ... within one school?

In her speech Estelle Morris said supporters of comprehensive education confused "excellence" with "elitism".

It was this, she said, which had led to comprehensive schools cancelling prize-giving days and abandoning competitive sport.

In some ways, this speech marks a new direction for Labour.

Structures are back

In its first term, the government's slogan was "standards not structures".

Estelle Morris is changing that: she wants every school to develop a distinct status.

That means new structures and new school labels. It is a recognition that structures do count.

Her language was unusually tough: no other minister would dare say, as she did, there are some schools they "wouldn't touch with a barge pole".

Perhaps only her 18 years a comprehensive school teacher allowed her to make such a statement and, perhaps, to get away with it.

Soviet-syle

She isn't ditching the comprehensive principle of equal opportunity for all but she wants fast-track streams for gifted pupils, more vocational choices, and at least half - maybe more - of all schools to become specialist colleges.

The aim is to end the "uniformity" of the school system.

Of course, those who work in comprehensives deny their schools resemble Soviet-style, "Gosplan" drabness.

Whoever is right, no-one could deny there are some schools, and some pupils, which do not flourish in the current system.

Maybe that will be true in any school system but that does not mean reform can be set aside for a period of comfortable consolidation.

Questions

But two big questions arise from Estelle Morris's speech.

First, if there is to be more diversity, how can this be achieved in a system which has seen increasing prescription from the centre?

The days when local education authorities led reforms such as the creation of middle schools are long gone.

Schools and LEAs which are fearful of their league table performance may feel restricted in their ability to innovate and experiment.

Can it work?

Secondly, should there be diversity between schools or within schools?

Once a child is at a particular school, it is difficult to change. Yet children do indeed change all the time.

Might it not be better for them to have real choices - between specialist or vocational courses, or between fast-track or mainstream - within one school?

Diversity of choice between schools may work in urban areas where there is, potentially, genuine parental choice.

But it is hard to see how this model works in a rural area where there is only one school within travelling distance.