Educating The Cabinet

In the exciting new world of coalition politics it is interesting to look at the educational backgrounds of the new cabinet. Of the 23, 12 went to fee paying schools, 7 went to old fashioned grammar schools and only 4 went to comprehensives. Since some of the grammar schools attended by cabinet ministers no longer exist and either vanished or are now fee paying, it seems likely that in the future even more cabinet ministers will come from independent [ie public or, more accurately, private] schools. All of the ministers went to university; 15 went to Oxford or Cambridge. Only four cabinet members are women and only one is not white Anglo-Saxon. I am not sure whether we should celebrate or commiserate with the perpetrators of this hopeless failure to represent an accurate cross-section of the nation. There is no earthly reason, of course, why the cabinet should be a cross-section of the nation. But what is worrying and surely a matter of real concern is that even though grammar schools were generally abolished 40 years ago and in spite of the fact that over 90% of the population attend state comprehensive schools, only four individuals made it to the cabinet. We have known for years that the top positions in the civil service and the law are filled with men and woman from fee paying schools who have attended Oxford or Cambridge universities. Sir Humphrey Appleby told Jim Hacker in "Yes Minister" thirty odd years ago that the department of education concentrated on keeping parents and teachers unions happy while they educated their own children privately. It's still the same. David Cameron told us during the election campaign that background and education did not matter, it was policies that were important. It is OK to say this if you come from a privileged background and have a few million pounds in the bank. David Cameron told us that a vote for the Tories was a vote for change. On the matter of top jobs and the education of those who fill them, nothing has changed.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the education provided in fee paying schools is far superior to that provided by all but the very, very best of comprehensives. In my young days there were over 1200 grammar schools in this country, all having intakes selected by some form of entrance exam. Many of them with long histories, they provided an education not far short of the independents but open to all who could pass the exams. After the Labour purges of the 1960s only 165 grammar schools remain - mainly around Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Kent. Their abolition has taken away the possibility of quality education from the poorer classes. It will be argued that a majority of children in the old grammar schools came from middle-class parents. Possibly. But many came from working class families. Until David Cameron came along, the last Old Etonian Prime Minister was Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1964. Most of the rest, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major went to grammar schools. Brown went to a state school in Scotland and was the son of a parson. Tony Blair came from a modest background but his father studied for a law degree at Edinburgh while working as a tax inspector and later was able to pay for his son to go to the Fettes College [current fees £25,000 per year]. The whole picture is a crashing indictment of state education. In spite of the fact that the Labour government had as an objective to send 50% of the population to university, the fact is that most were unqualified for a university education and got to downgraded universities via an exam system that every year gives higher and higher gradings to children who often can hardly read or write. As I have written before this country has always been run by the rich and the very rich. In many ways they have made a pig's-ear of it and it must be better to broaden the selection base and strengthen the roots in all sections of society. Perhaps they suffer from a form of intellectual incest.

I will still wish the new coalition well as they try to face up to the immense problems of national [and private] debt. Are we in an era of new politics? Will anything change for the better? In five years time [or less], we will know.

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