Class domination dooms us to Boris

A report from a charity that monitors social mobility shows that most of our top jobs go to people (usually men) who have been privately educated and gone on to Oxford or Cambridge.

The Sutton Trust and Social Mobility Commission looked into the educational background of 5,000 people in top jobs and found that 65% of senior judges went to private schools while 71% went to Oxbridge.

Some 52% of junior ministers went to an independent school and 52% of cabinet members went to Oxford or Cambridge. Figures for diplomats were almost identical.

Newspapers are almost as bad. Some 44% of columnists come from this background.

So it’s not only most of the people who are in charge of us, but also most of those who tell us what to think.

As a result, we are dominated by a tiny minority of the population. One that is drawn from a very particular social class with a particular attitude and outlook on life.

This can’t be good for our society and can’t be the best use of all our human resources or mean we are making the most of all the ideas and ambitions of our population.

I’m well aware that private schools and the top universities have bursaries and offer other ways of helping parents to fund their children’s education in these places.

But we’re only talking about a tiny minority here.

It’s because of this situation that we have public schoolboys and Oxbridge University graduates Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson battling to be our next Prime Minister.

Unless it is changed, we are doomed to more Borises in the future.

Mind you, Jeremy Corbyn isn’t a great alternative…

n We are often told that a key reason many voted for Brexit was because they felt alienated from Parliament where decisions taken had ignored their communities or left them behind.

People were also fed up of politicians constantly telling them lies, making up stories, preferring opinion over fact and their own careers over the good of the nation.

So why are so many Conservative supporters – and others – so keen on Boris Johnson? A man who has been at the heart of a government accused of alienating voters and failing less well-off areas.

A man who has repeatedly shown himself to be a liar and whose only career focus has been his own ambition. Strange times.