Last night Guardian hack Amelia Gentleman Tweeted
Two-thirds of the new cabinet ministers, so far, educated at independent schools. Compares to 38% of Brown's last cabinet #ge2010Then this:
Three quarters of new cabinet come from Oxbridge, according to Sutton Trust, compared to 36% from Oxbridge in Brown's last cabinet. #ge2010
Funnily enough, Amelia 'Milly' Gentleman attended St Pauls Girls' school, (and then Oxbridge, I think). She happens to be married to Jo Johnson (Eton then Oxford - not that you'd get him throwing stones at glass houses).
Now Guardian Comment editor Seamus Milne (son of BBC DG Alastair Milne and ex Winchester and Bailiol) just used Wato to trot out the latest attack on the "most elitist Government+ most socially unrepresentative Parliament since the '1930s."
These class ridden attacks say more about those that make them than the people they attack. What would these people say if 70% of the Cabinet had been to the worst performing university in the country, rather than one of the best. Would that be a good thing? Frankly, anyone who believes that a Cabinet packed full of graduates from the University of East London would be a good idea needs psychological treatment. Most normal people are quite happy that the people who seek to govern the country are well educated.
Woo. Class War. Only they are all nobs.
ReplyDeleteRather than moaning that leading politicians come from a select number of schools - why aren't the lefties wondering what is so wrong with state education that it has failed to deliver Cabinet worthy politicians?
ReplyDeleteTheir obsession with the class war is distracting them from the real problem - the failure of the state education system.
Maybe if more Guardian writers had been to state schools, they would also be as concerned about its failures as opposed to trying to score petty political points by attacking private schools.
Don't bite Iain, let them stew in their own putrid juices.
ReplyDeleteGuardian readership levels are falling soon your blog and Guido's will be beating them on a daily basis.
Remember they can only attack on class and education of the cabinet then we must be doing all the rest correctly.
P.S. At least Cameron has kept the number of Scots down.
Isn't this only the same kind of whining as the complaints you made twice in the last few weeks about the Lib Dems not having the approved racial balance in their candidate list?
ReplyDeleteIain, you mention "normal people" - we all know the Left are anything BUT normal people. Their whole existence is driven by class prejudice.
ReplyDeleteThe recently deceased Liebor Cabinet were mainly products of third rate academic institutions. It showed in how badly they ruled the country. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteIanVisits has hit the nail on the head. The best way to change these statistics in the long term is to pursue radical education reforms along the lines of the Gove policy.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. It seems now that the left seems to think that discrimination is utterly unforgivable unless it's on the grounds of ideology (ie conservatism).
ReplyDeleteThe way the popular left are treating anyone with any conservative leanings (even the Lib Dems) is beyond banter, beyond 'safe' levels and is rapidly becoming a sign dangerous ideological hatred.
The only other groups with such a passionate hatred of their ideological opponents tend to be known as fascists or fundamentalists.
Bastard hypocrite - and believe me if there is one thing I cannot stand its a hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteAnd as I said to the Duke of Edinburgh last week I cannot stand name droppers.
UEA ?? Then your is responsible for the global warming scam ...
"I'm told the Guardian is..."
ReplyDelete"I'm told"?
What sort of journalism is that? Not very good, I'd suggest.
Your latest rant also has a fundamental inconsistency.
How can you justify your accusations of journalists being "Class Ridden Lefties", when you then detail the privileged private schools and universities that they have attended?
You even go to the trouble of pointing out that journalists you name also happen to be either married into or born into the ruling Establishment. Class-ridden?
It is a real logic fail on your behalf. Yes, we know that there is a ruling Establishment that has run this country for centuries, whether in the Labour or the Tory party. Or, now, the Liberal party.
Are you looking to argue that that is right or proper?
Cameron's Cabinet is the most unrepresentative since the 1930s.
That won't change if you hide from that fact just because you don't like it.
Ehm... HELLO?!!!
ReplyDeleteThe Guardian aren't running the country and representing people in Parliament.
Bit of a difference there.
As an ex secondary modern pupil, I do not have a problem with Eton and Oxbridge educated ministers. Good luck to them as they'll certainly need it when the Treasury accounts are opened! Where will the bodies be buried and how many will there be?
ReplyDeleteProfessional tosspot Richad Bacon of the BBC has also been attacking the Tories about being public schoolboys on his pathetic Twatter account.
ReplyDeleteThing is Bacon is a public schoolboy himself as of course are most beeboids.
So come on Iain why don't more Tories out the lefty BBC types who are doing the moaning?
Also, quite apart from the state/public school argument, it's hard to see why the point about Oxbridge is held by some people to be so important. Anyone from any background can go to Oxbridge if they work hard enough and get good grades.
ReplyDeleteSurely it's a good thing if the top ranking ministers in our Government went to two of the best universities in the country. I know my friends who were at Oxford and Cambridge had to work much harder than me at university.
I'd rather have clever people who have always been willing to work hard in the highest offices of state.
This is not about class but social mobility which is supposed to be a big priority for this new progressive government.
ReplyDeleteWell, it IS the Guardian. If all you have is a hammer etc...
ReplyDeleteWould someone like to go down to the Guardian offices and shout Fettes in a loud voice.
ReplyDeleteHaving read Rawnsley's epic tome earlier this week I was trying to come up with a term to describe the last 13 years. A friend suggested Gyrocracy , where spin reigned supreme and a collegiate cabinet of elected representatives was replaced by feuding camps
Speaking of Education and Michael Gove, who thought it would be a good idea to dump that champion of the bleeding-heart brigade and opposer of Education reform Sarah 'I'm squeaky clean on Expenses you know' Teather onto Gove's team at Education?
ReplyDeleteShe abhors most of his policy agenda and will oppose him at every opportunity.
Still, I suppose the old adage of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer has a bearing here...
FB.
On occasion i've said ' who gives a shit what the guardian says'. well, for 13 years, apparently a lot of people. But those days are now gone; and so my timing may be out, but the question still stands. If only normal people would keep reminding the rest of us that these are the marxist/socialists who have spent 100 years trying to destroy Western civilisation. they have come close to succeeding on may occasions, but they never quite make it. That's the bitter-sweetness of watching them play their degenerate games. I reckon they'll never win. But what disappoints is that the are never fully punished for their depravities.
ReplyDelete@IanVisits "Rather than moaning that leading politicians come from a select number of schools - why aren't the lefties wondering what is so wrong with state education that it has failed to deliver Cabinet worthy politicians?"
ReplyDeleteExactly. It is a classic case of "LOOK! OVER THERE!"
And of course the classic, ever-present claggy stench of envy-riddled class-war hypocritical ladder-kicking.
On the contrary, it's an extremely important point. Any claims we live in some sort of meritocracy are nonsense, the UK government is almost entirely composed of an elite. Where the Guardians hack went to school is neither here nor there, they're not claiming to govern on behalf of the vast, vast majority who would never get near Oxbridge.
ReplyDeleteIf you think having 23 millionaires in the cabinet isn't a problem you're miles out of touch. These people who are about to slash public services have absolutely no idea about how people live in this country, and that's just shocking for a modern industrialised nation.
Iain,
ReplyDeleteI was with you until the nasty snobbery of your last couple of sentences. Lot of people born around Brick Lane for example might do well, given the poor schooling they will get, to reach the University of East London, and emerge full of talent and hard work.
Frankly if you have 2 of the best universities in the world I would be disappointed if a significant number of our senior politicians hadn't attended them
ReplyDeleteiain
ReplyDeletesoory las comment was me! Hadn't realised Nadira has been using my laptop.
craig murray
The best commander that I ever served under was Eton, Guards and the younger son of an earl. He was inspiring, genuinely cared for his soldiers whom he treated with unfailing courtesy, and was respected by all. The Prime Minister displayed these sort of qualities during the campaign. What a contrast to the boorish, malignant behaviour we have witnessed during the past 13 years.
ReplyDeleteHow on earth do these Guardianistas get to their elevated positions and salaries? It surely cannot be because they are in any way competent. Is there some sort of old school tie network in operation here? And while we're at it perhaps the spiral careers of the BBC brotherhood should be scrutinised.
ReplyDelete"How can you justify your accusations of journalists being 'Class Ridden Lefties', when you then detail the privileged private schools and universities that they have attended?"
ReplyDeleteAre you just pretending to be dim or does it come naturally?
I suppose the Milibands went to their local comprehensive and lived in a shoebox?
ReplyDeleteMy Dad used to teach at the University of East London (back in in the days when it was the North East London Polytechnic). It's true to say that it didn't attract large number of the academic elite. But it widened the horizons and gave a leg up to thousands of people, including mature students and people who needed to study close to home or who missed out on a good education at school and were able to catch up on education later in life. So I find your disparaging remark about UEL graduates a bit unfortunate.
ReplyDeleteYes - there are more important things than which schools Cabinet members went to. But it it not unreasonable to suggest that a properly representative Parliament and Government would bring a wider and more rounded perspective to bear on issues than one drawn from a very narrow social range.
Richard Bacon's numbers are wrong, anyway, as he's claiming that only 4 of Blair's first Cabinet were Oxbridge, whereas in fact 6 studied there (Blair, Chris Smith, Lord Irvine, Robin Butler, Ivor Richard & Gavin Strang). So all the jealous lefties who have retweeted it into a frenzy really should have got their facts straight.
ReplyDeleteAnd,as a white, middle-class, public school educated Oxbridge graduate myself, I'm looking forward to the reams of privilege I can expect from this Cabinet, who clearly have only my interests at heart.
Well, come on don't, these Guardianistas know...that the policies of the Dept for Energy and Climate Change are wholly dependent on the outcomes from the UEA.
ReplyDeleteActually I don't give a stuff if Cameron's Cabinet is 'unrepresentative'. I'm much more concerned that it should be competent.
ReplyDeleteI'd be perfectly happy if it was composed of Martians, Venusians and Space Lizards, just as long as they could do the job properly.
Let's be clear, 'representation' is absolutely no guarantee of ability - and there's been far too much of that kind of bollox in recent years.
Why don't you compile a list of the Guardian class, Iain. I'll be happy to re-publish it - and help spread it around.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it should include the backgrounds of the BBC - particularly the Newsnight and Today crews.
I'd rather have a well-educated person running the country than some illiterate who hasn't learned proper leadership skills.
Iain,
ReplyDeleteI understand the point you are trying to make but I still think that you are slightly misguided.
I'm sure it would be possible to compile a list of former Oxbridge graduates who have really f*cked things up in the past. As I'm sure it would be possible to make a list from UEL.
The cabinet IS cliquey and it does not look good that there is a predominance from Oxbridge and private school. Our country is surely worth more than that?
C minus Mr Dale. Must try harder next time.
Lets hope that a well performing coalition allows the country to see that the LDs are the best representatives for liberal politics as opposed to the class obsessed Labour party.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the name of the party (Labour) gives the clue - old fashioned class nutters.
Go for it Clegg and reshape the centre left.
What a load of joy. Are you competent? Your birth, your education matters not one whit past 40. Are you competent?
ReplyDeleteThis hateful stuff only comes from the left; Is Alan Johnson not capeable because he was a postman; or David David because he came via a council estate?
This reverse snobbery is vile. Can you hack the job is the criteria. That tosh yesterday of Fenwick told us alll we need to know about the lefty OxBridge types.
Useful Idiots should now have a period of silence; that for me includes Milipersons, Mandelpersons, Cheriepersons and the whole tribe who allowed Brown to do such spectacular damage to our beloved country in the name of Socialism.
@purpleline
ReplyDeleteI would be devastated if the Guardian was to disappear. Now that we have been statutorily barred from slagging off every other minority can you imagine if you weren't allowed to rip into North London's Metro Journo-Luvvies as well?
No, you can take away as many civil liberties as you want but this would be a step too far. Look, Private Eye only delivers satire once a fortnight. With the Guardian you get it every day.
As for that balance, just dump the five Lib Dems - that's four privately educated and five Oxbridge boys gone all at once.
On a slightly more serious note it must be said that the situation isn't going to get much better in the immediate future. The wreckage of the grammar school system under the Wilson and Heath governments (both grammar boys of course...) means that the political elite is drawn from a narrower pool than it was in much of the post-War era. The comprehensive system means that the William Hagues, Douglas Alexanders and John Cruddases of the world will remain outliers rather than the norm, unfortunately.
They should be more concerned with how their display ad revenue will hold up in 2011.
ReplyDeleteMight be worth reading my latest post.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind well-educated people governing, but I do object to them setting the rules for "the poor" whom they tend to know nothing about and standing firm against grammar schools which are the greatest device for social mobility ever created - as said David Davis.
Why does the cabinet have to be representative? The cabinet should be composed of the brightest most able and accomplished people available. God knows we need it to be. @popgun is right. These Lefty commentators are oh so politically correct and anti discrimination - unless of course your parents sent you to a public school or you hold a right of centre view on something. In that case you are barely human and should be spat at in the street. It really is getting quite disturbing.
ReplyDeleteLabour have brought this situation about by abolishing the grammar schools. My father and his five siblings were brought up in a one bedroom flat in Brixton. Their mother had been a domestic servant. Their father was a manual worker "on the lump", lucky if he had three days' work a week throughout the 1930s. Through free grammar school education, my father and his brothers eventually attained good positions in the professions and public service. Because of free grammar school education, plus student grants, my brother and I and three of our cousins became the first in our family ever to go to university (two to Oxbridge). I went on to join the Diplomatic Service in the 1970s, having gone to a state school and a red brick university. Many other families of working class origin experienced similar social mobility through education. But my brother and I have both had to pay private school fees to enable our own children to have the same quality of education. Given my family background, I find it extremely offensive to have my daughter labelled a "toff" because, at considerable financial sacrifice to myself, she attended a public school.
ReplyDeleteIain would you be very kind and publish the address of the people who were collecting election leaflets etc. I dutifully saved all mine for them and want to post them off but sadly am far too lazy to check older posts as I can't remember how long ago it was xxxx
ReplyDelete@lance - you have it all upside down. If it's supposed to be a meritocracy then where people went to school or how much money they have is irrelevant. What you are saying in practice is that having determined who are the best people available for cabinet posts on merit you then take a red pencil and strike people out for being too posh or too rich and replace them with less able people. How meritocratic is that?
ReplyDeleteHaving taught students in Oxbridge, Redbricks and in new universities ( former polys), I would have been very worried indeed if a majority of the cabinet are from the universities like UEL. One of the major mistakes that Major govt committed was to rebrand polytechnics as universities. Polytechnics served the country well by training young and mature students ( particularly those soldiers who were discharged from the army after WWII) with technical skills that the industry
ReplyDeletedesperately needed. Until 1991, these polys were well known as excellent providers of vocational skills. What the rebranding did was to let the new universities -the former polys to jettison this decades- long ethos, and indulge in setting up micky-mouse degree courses like business and media studies which bring in thousands of weak students from secondary schools who are not ready for university courses, and who graduate with no sector interested in them. Engineering, particularly people with power engineering skills are hard to find in this country and we are importing them from the EU and beyond.
Oxbridge and redbricks like UCL these days have plenty of stud ents from poor communities. I have often found that those pathetic class warriors do not want to send their sons /daughters to UEL but aim at Oxbridge and redbricks.
I read with interest that Pickles went to Leeds Polytechnic, a very good institution then which trained students with vocational skills.
Good timing - I just read this pathetic "article" http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/13/reasons-love-tory-government and wondered if, in 13 years of watching Brown wreck our economy, any decent paper ever wished that he "fall under a truck".
ReplyDeleteThe Big Percentage is 55% for a no-confidence vote.
ReplyDeleteNo comment on that, so far.
So much for the "not slavish" Toryism Ian Dale's header claims.
Or is it that Iain Dale is better on character-assassination than principled policy?
Nadira!
ReplyDeletechildren born, or living, in the vicinity of Brick Lane, will have access to the rather good Sir John Cass Foundation Primary school - in th City of London - but which is in fact a small "state" primary school - just a few hundred yards away, with excellent mentoring programmes for children with ability, a nursery, an after school club, varid intra and xtra curricular activities, including an association with the oldest scout/guides group, and which serves this Tower Hamlets community well. There are other pretty good "state" primary schools around too.
Of course anyone with the lack of aspiration can't do attitude espoused by your post will be unlikely to foster a positive learning attitude in any child.
Malcolm, an apology please. I made clear my opposition to the 55% thing on Twitter yesterday. It was extensively commented on at the time.
ReplyDelete"I am very concerned by this proposed change to the Vote of Confidence rules. The 55% proposal is daft, undemocratic and ought to be shelved"
Clear? I shall also be blogging about it tomorrow.
Not only an apology, a fulsome one.
ReplyDeleteI loath and detest this Twitter nonsense; and otherwise must have missed the excitement.
I gather the 55% thing is a LibDem thought. That tells me all I need to know.
A Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government will put a binding motion before the House of Commons in the first days following this agreement stating that the next general election will be held on the first Thursday of May 2015. Following this motion, legislation will be brought forward to make provision for fixed term parliaments of five years. This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour.
Any LibDem who supports this, who votes for it, who can speak for it is no democrat.
Glad, for once, we see eye-to-eye.
Just imagine if a Tory said Alan Johnson should not be a minister as he was only a postman. If social mobility had not fallen so much under labour maybe there would be a different mix. I for one am glad we have educated people running the country no matter what schools they went to.
ReplyDeleteAFAIK, the 55% thing doesn't refer to Confidence votes; just the disolving of Parliament - which is of course different.
ReplyDeleteMalcolm and Iain
ReplyDeletePlease see my comments on the "Outta here" thread:
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/05/outta-here.html#c5611879708884974924
The 55% does NOT refer to a confidence vote. It is NOT a change to the vote of confidence rules.
Iain approved my comments on that thread but appears not to have read them. I thank him for that vote of confidence :-)
Well, having seen that fat stupid slob Prescott trying to do anything, (and failing), I'm b****y glad the Cabinet come up with most members having a reasonable attitude to resolving the awful problems we face.
ReplyDeleteWhy did Dads and Mums send their kids to private schools?
Because they're better that's why.
End of story.
I've got absolutely no problem with posh, privately educated people as long as they don't lecture me about the moral worth of state education whilst sending their own kids to private school. There were far too many of that sort in our recent Labour cabinets.
ReplyDelete@Craig-who-lends-his-laptop-to-Nadira:
My husband was born not far from Brick Lane. Thanks to his 1970s grammar school he now has two degrees from Cambridge. As you say, East London's kids today get pretty poor schooling.
Iain, there are plenty within your own party that similarly express reactionary, class-based drivel.
ReplyDeleteFor example, this recent post on ConHome brought us a classic:
"I favour a constitution that is organic, husbanded by an establishment class of self-sustaining oligarchs who understand their duty to interpret the constitution anew in each age, and apply it for the promotion of ordered liberty whilst always respecting justice and true religion."
An establishment class of self-sustaining oligarchs? Hardly the modern face of your party, is it?
@lance:
ReplyDelete"These people who are about to slash public services have absolutely no idea about how people live in this country, and that's just shocking for a modern industrialised nation."
Do you honestly think Gordon Brown knew the slightest thing about the lifestyles and needs of ordinary lower-middle class people in southern England? If he did know, he was doing a pretty impressive job of hiding it.
since the left gave up actually standing for any principles and regrouped around identity politics during the 80s this is all they've got - bless 'em
ReplyDeleteGiven the references to UEL, and to educational opportunities in East London, can I put in a shameless plug for the "Birkbeck, Stratford" project? It is a joint project between Birkbeck, UEL and Newnham 6th Form College, designed to enable people living in East London to study for a University of London qualification, part-time, in the evenings, while working or fulfilling family commitments. More information can be found at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/about_us/stratford . My daughter is a fund raiser for the project, which has the support of Boris Johnson. They would be thrilled to receive donations, however small, from the compassionate Conservatives and Liberal Democrats who read this blog - and even from Guardianista twitterati.
ReplyDeleteIgnore the Guardianistas Iain, they're just eaten up with bitterness.
ReplyDeleteTalking of while male Oxbridge, the best the PM programme could come up with is that Annie Lennox thinks there aren't enough women in the Cabinet !
I try, like the White Queen, to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast (I get them from The Times as a rule).
ReplyDeleteI simply cannot believe that any administration can simply walk away from something as serious, as pre-meditated, as orchestrated as a formal Vote of No Confidence, that the situation doesn't require the government to seek a new mandate.
Beyond that, the febrile apologists need to argue why 55% is the proper number.
Somewhere in my attic there's Quintin Hogg's powerful The Case for Conservatism (original, and in hard back). I wonder what it would imply about unConservative nonsense of this sort.
OK the Guardian does not run the country. But then each of these public school/Oxbridge politicians has been elected by real people voting, unlike public school/Oxbridge Guardian journalists.
ReplyDeleteIs there just not something a bit unedifying about public school children in 'progressive' journalism making snide remarks about other public school children who are now in politics?
On a point of order, it is Balliol, not Bailiol. A semantic detail not lost on the likes of Marxist student revolutionaries such as Tony Blair at neighbouring St John's College during the famous 1973 Schools Sit-in at Oxford University. An eyewitness account of which is here: http://charlescrawford.biz/blog/art1013
There is a real Maggie Clegg from British TV:
ReplyDeletehttp://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/maggie_clegg_cameron_clegg_coalition_tory_liberal.htm
Most normal people are quite happy that the people who seek to govern the country are well educated.
ReplyDeleteNO! Ability, Judgement and intelligence are not a function of education. Sure it helps, you can educate a fool, but you cannot make a fool intelligent.
And I am disgusted at your slight at UeL, and the wonderful Chancellor Lord Brian [trousers down] Rix, he of the Whitehall Farce. How apt!
You attack the class ridden left, but in doing so you show your own class bias - shame on you.
I thought you were better than that, I am sad I was wrong.
Heaven forbid our cabinet members should benefit from a high standard of education!
ReplyDeleteOn a serious note, what does it matter where a person if from, what gender, colour, education, etc?
What matters is their output.
Think of all those non-jobs that won't now be advertised in the Gruniard.
ReplyDeleteTheir (government-sourced) advertising revenue will plummet.
As many (I think most) public schools were set up to provide schooling to bright children of poor families and still provide scholarships, and Labour has abolished nearly all the grammar schools it is hardly surprising that the majority of British Oxbridge students get there via independent schools (including Manchester Grammar and RGS Newcastle). The number of boys getting scholarships to public ("independent") schools exceeds the number going to Oxbridge. So if public schools did not provide a disproportionate number of Oxbridge students their selection process for scholarships would be an abysmal failure.
ReplyDeleteBeing a member of the intellectual elite is not an automatic qualification for membership of the cabinet but it does help if ministers at the Department of Education can multiply 8 by 7.
As many (I think most) public schools were set up to provide schooling to bright children of poor families and still provide scholarships, and Labour has abolished nearly all the grammar schools it is hardly surprising that the majority of British Oxbridge students get there via independent schools (including Manchester Grammar and RGS Newcastle). The number of boys getting scholarships to public ("independent") schools exceeds the number going to Oxbridge. So if public schools did not provide a disproportionate number of Oxbridge students their selection process for scholarships would be an abysmal failure.
ReplyDeleteBeing a member of the intellectual elite is not an automatic qualification for membership of the cabinet but it does help if ministers at the Department of Education can multiply 8 by 7.
Don't forget that the current leader of the Labour Party went to St Pauls, and the Shadow Chancellor (?) went to Loretto.
ReplyDeleteThe issue shouldn't be so much Oxbridge versus the rest, but Oxford versus Cambridge/Imperial/UCL, all of which are better universities by some measures. I've posted elsewhere on the subject, but it's kinda interesting that of the 6 Cantabs in the Cabinet, three are LibDems (Clegg,Cable and Laws) - and Cambridge types seem more suited to the other side of the fence, from Paxman down. It certainly bears out my anecdotal experience that people at Cambridge are less conventional, more free-thinking, and less suited to life in party politics.
As others have said - I don't care what they've done in the past, just so long as their journey through life has left them with wisdom and ability to do their job.
Interesting to see people make the grammar school connection here, Cable and Clarke might be some of the last of the grammar school boys to hold high office. It can't be that common for all three main party leaders to have gone to public school - and Clarendon(ish) ones at that - but I suspect that we'll see much more of that sort of thing now that the abolition of the grammar schools has worked its way through the system. Yes, I know Kent, Bucks, Lincs and a few other places haven't abolished them yet. But who'd want to elect someone from Kent? :-)))
49 appointments out of 58 so far white males.
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly a new look to government.
Only in this country do we deride excellence in education. A result I think of heightened sensitivity (falsely to my mind) wrought over the Labour government's time where educational excellence is seen as class privilege, an inequality which must be stamped out. Well, we sit with the result of that view, that made its way into Labour policy and thankfully the electorate have cast their judgement. What if education excellence were replaced by race in these attacks?
ReplyDeleteHopefully Cameron's vision of aspiration will sink these spiteful attacks. How ridiculous these socialist hacks look, desperately grasping at lines of attack and showing themselves to be shallow. Overseas onlookers must wonder: "what on earth are they on about?". Well meaning Briton's are asking the same thing. The slur of privilege is used by jealous and envious commentators, and all it shows is that they are very sore losers and have lost the argument.
btw @ Weggis:
"You attack the class ridden left".
Where, I didn't read it in Iain's post?
"[C]an I put in a shameless plug for the "Birkbeck, Stratford" project...designed to enable people living in East London to study for a University of London qualification, part-time, in the evenings...They would be thrilled to receive donations, however small, from...Guardianista twitterati."
ReplyDeleteIt was very noticeable at university that the people on the Left who talked (shouted) about the needs of the poor did little but vent their (generally ill informed) spleen in university debates (they were particularly keen that people other than themselves should pay more), whereas the people who actually gave their time and money to people in need were generally on the (Christian) Right.
Another thing I noticed is that a high proportion of those on the Left who were most keen on getting other people to pay for what they wanted went onto get jobs in the Public Sector.
It strikes me then (as now) that they were simply making sure that their (generally useless and parasitic) jobs in the Public Sector were well funded.
In my opinion many of the people described here as "Guardianista twitterati" live quite shamelessly off the backs of the poor (indeed that is the function of their Left wing rhetoric) in the Public Sector. See for example the recent (uncharacteristically honest) article by Denis McShane about his desire to live it up at the taxpayers expense as a Minister.
The chances of getting a donation from such people therefore is pretty remote. I think you will find their holiday home in Tuscany takes up all their spare cash.
If anything Guardinistas want to keep people poor and dependent.
They aspire to be the governing elite in a Socialist republic. They generally despise the values of the working and lower middle classes.
You just have to remember that these Guardian types are very unhappy at the moment. Whatever happened to Tory tolerance?
ReplyDeleteI do wonder where this could take us though
http://hampsteadowl.wordpress.com/
Here, Here. I went to Chiltern Edge School, Henley College and Solent University. I to are sick to death of all this class anxis.
ReplyDeleteNow they are not in power exercising their thuggery in private the left are exercising it in public.
ReplyDeleteIain you need to develop a thuggery meme and keep plugging it until the public associate the left with vernal knucle dusters and threats. Rise above their psychosis.
It's one of those subjective issues (I can't remember the exact name for it).
ReplyDeleteI want an educated parliament
You are an elitist snob
etc
Unsworth said:
ReplyDelete'Let's be clear, 'representation' is absolutely no guarantee of ability - and there's been far too much of that kind of bollox in recent years'.
The voice of reason!!
Just because they are hypocrites, doesn't mean it's not a problem.
ReplyDeleteHarold Wilson (our 'arold) went to Grammar School and Oxford. He sent his sons to UCS (Independent) in Hampstead. They're all a bunch of Hypocrites. The leftie Liberals should shut up as their icons Joe Grimmond and Jeremy Thorpe were both Old Etonians.
ReplyDeleteAs for Gordon Brown, read this from an Andrew Neil Blog, December 2009:-
'Mr Brown, after all, is hardly a horny-handed son of toil. He's actually steeped in the Scottish Establishment, as much as Mr Cameron is in the English Establishment. As a son of the manse -- and a manse occupied by a highly-respected and well-known Presbyterian minister -- he hails from the heart of the Scottish professional bourgeoisie. He attended a fiercely selective elite grammar school and sailed into Edinburgh University, an overwhelmingly middle-to-upper-middle class institution, jammed packed with public school boys like Mr Cameron (the locals call them "Yahs" -- as in OK Yah!). His father's reputation gave him an easy entree into Scottish socialism and its leading lights. He could be regarded, in some ways, as part of the Scottish socialist aristocracy'
I am SO glad you have written this! I am sick to the back teeth of my friends banging on to me about the numbers of cabinet members who have been privately educated and/or been to Oxford. Its reverse snobbery! Can you imagine if a Conservative journalist started mocking Labour cabinet members for having gone to a state school or an insignificant University?!
ReplyDeleteI just read a piece in the Times by Jack Straw:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7124555.ece
It's quite a good read, actually, but at the end he says something weird about his acceptance as Justice Secretary/Lord Chancellor, a job now going to Kenneth Clarke:
"There was enough anxiety in judicial circles about having a Commoner as Lord Chancellor. I guess that Ken, as an old Tory, can suit himself."
What does this mean? I see from their wikipedia pages that both went to direct grant grammar schools and then studied law at university. Are they really perceived differently in judicial circles? Or is it just that Straw has been carefully nurturing a chip on his shoulder for career reasons?
"I to are sick to death"?
ReplyDeleteMe not understand.
To put this particular smear to bed all Tories in Government, at all times, should just do a variation of what Hague did to Harman at PMQs. They should preface every response with , "I'd like to answer the Eton-educated, graduate from Oxford Mr ..., by saying that..."
ReplyDeleteIf they did this to every single question they were asked on this topic it would get tedious but it would also soon disappear.
God, a well-educated Cabinet. What a travesty. We should of course be governed not by the well-educated, but by the witless and the clueless. Oh, hang on, they lost didn't they?
ReplyDelete@Jimmy. The first cabinet minister in Blair govt is that imbicile Paul Boeteng whose son made so much news in SA which was suppressed at the end. You want some one like that in this govt? Boeteng did send one of his Sons to Highgate independent school the same school Charles Clarke went.
ReplyDelete