Posh and Posher - BBC2 Doc

[Fat_Cav]

I'm no fan of Brillopad Neil, but the program does raise some good questions about the rise of the Modern Politican.

Today's politicains are more than likely to be Public School educated, have an Oxbridge degree and have undertaken an apprenticeship as a SPAD (Special Advisor) than at any time since the 50's.

So, has Brillo got it right, or is the program another excuse to bash Auntie for having a sly knock at the Tory elite?? He does also have a swipe at Labours front bench too.

Personally, I believe that the future of a new MP having a background of rising up through the local councils/authorities, being a local party stalwart and then managing to defy their parties NEC to become the local choice are diminishing. The media is full of one privilaged candidate or other being parachuted into a safe seat at the dusgust of the local party.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg seem made for each other: Eton and Oxford meets Westminster School and Cambridge. But does the return of public school boys to the top of our politics say something worrying about the decline of social mobility in Britain?
Andrew Neil goes on a journey from the Scottish council house he grew up in to the corridors of power to ask if we will ever again see a prime minister emerge from an ordinary background like his.
In this provocative film Andrew seeks to find out why politicians from all parties appear to be drawn from an ever smaller social pool - and why it matters to us all.

BBC iPlayer - Posh and Posher: Why Public School Boys Run Britain

Interestingly my MP is The Honourable Edward Henry Butler Vaizey, son of the late Lord Vaizey and Historian Marina Vaizey. Educated at St Pauls; London, Meron College, Oxford and trained as a barrister. Was an advisor to Kenneth Clarke & Michael Howard. Does have some links to our area through his childhood but certainly can not be thought of a local

PS. Yes, I did vote for him

 

[DrunkenIrish]

The irony is that it was a Labour government that introduced University fees and scrapped grammar schools which allowed both of my parents to escape the shitholes they grew up in, and gave those from a less previleged background a chance to get a decent crack at breaking into the political system.

 

[lsquared]

The BBC will never ever miss an opportunity to make snide remarks against 'the Tory led Coalition' and against 'public school posh boys', despite the fact that the hierarchy of the BBC is littered with privately educated men and women and 'Oxbridge' graduates.

State education is generally, there are exceptions, so dreadful that I cannot blame any parent for choosing the 'private system'.

Cream will rise to the top, but similarly from time to time, so will shit! Examples: Prescott; Martin; Foulkes; Uddin.

 

[Jorrocks]

Cameron and Clegg have the best education that money can buy so why wouldn´t you want that for your leadership? But private education alone is not enough - you´ve only got to look at me to understand that. Posh, well educated and thick = Cavalry, bow out at ceiling and scrape by bluffing the way. Posh, well educated and intelligent = Oxbridge, merchant bank, PM.

 

[bigeye]

The BBC will never ever miss an opportunity to make snide remarks against 'the Tory led Coalition' and against 'public school posh boys', despite the fact that the hierarchy of the BBC is littered with privately educated men and women and 'Oxbridge' graduates.

State education is generally, there are exceptions, so dreadful that I cannot blame any parent for choosing the 'private system'.

Cream will rise to the top, but similarly from time to time, so will shit! Examples: Prescott; Martin; Foulkes; Uddin.

Righto, now try this....

The BBC will not ignore the fact 'the Tory led Coalition' is largely made up of 'public school posh boys', despite the fact that the hierarchy of the BBC is littered with privately educated men and women and 'Oxbridge' graduates.

Take out the word 'snide' and we put a different complexion on the situation.

Let's not forget that last year 'the BBC' was accused of having an anti-Gordon bent.

In any case any generalization along the lines of 'The BBC says this...' is, of course, bollocks; as the company is made up of hundreds of thousands of INDIVIDUALS. When do do you hear commentators stating that: ' The Army strongly feels.....'?

Now please note the following:

Editorial policy is not dictated from one place but is spread widely across the company and is diverse;as opposed to Sky or ITN or or LBC or Channel 5 (hahahahah) or any other independent news organization (Mr Murdoch anyone?) where the head honchos hand down the diktats from a central location

Truth be told the BBC political wing could 'almost' be accused of having an opposite bias to your original proposal.

I work for them now and again and rarely can be bothered to defend the organization - but let's be realistic.

 

[Mister_Angry]

The BBC will never ever miss an opportunity to make snide remarks against 'the Tory led Coalition' and against 'public school posh boys', despite the fact that the hierarchy of the BBC is littered with privately educated men and women and 'Oxbridge' graduates.

State education is generally, there are exceptions, so dreadful that I cannot blame any parent for choosing the 'private system'.

Cream will rise to the top, but similarly from time to time, so will shit! Examples: Prescott; Martin; Foulkes; Uddin.

Good point well made. Had Neil chosen to make a series, he could have done episode 2 about the BBC; episode 3 about the legal profession; episode 4 about banking and the City etc etc.

 

[bigeye]

Good point well made. Had Neil chosen to make a series, he could have done episode 2 about the BBC; episode 3 about the legal profession; episode 4 about banking and the City etc etc.

Can you name a UK based international organization that is not 'littered with privately educated men and women and 'Oxbridge' graduates.'?

 

[Mister_Angry]

Cameron and Clegg have the best education that money can buy so why wouldn´t you want that for your leadership?

Because its an education that leads to the view that it, alone, without further experience of the world qualifies you for political office?
Because it's an education to a significant degree accessed through wealth, not merit? Because its an education that leads to a narrow, ideologically conformist view of the world? Because its an education that leads to a very, very narrow social experience? Because - as Douglas Hurd had the integrity to acknowledge - its an educational environment that enables career progression through your peer network, not merit?

Politics is too important for this to go unchallenged. Hats off to Neil. Also for calling out Diane Abbott on the issue of her kids education showing her to be the hypocritical mediocrity she is.

 

[Mister_Angry]

Can you name a UK based international organization that is not 'littered with privately educated men and women and 'Oxbridge' graduates.'?

Errrm, al-Qaeda?

 

[OldSnowy]

From the Grand Lady herself, in 1977:

"People from my sort of background needed Grammar schools to compete with children from privileged homes like Shirley Williams and Anthony Wedgwood Benn."

Labour and Conservative together have worked to destroy Grammar Schools and the genuine choice that they offered - why, I don't know for the Tories did, but on the Labour side it's further proof that the inherent socialist idea that "we know what's good for you, you're just an ignorant peasant" is utterly false, and always ends in disaster.

Oh, and Shirley Williams (St Pauls, then Oxford) did more to destroy the opportunities available to bright but impecunious youngsters than almost anyone else in Britain.

 

[bigeye]

From the Grand Lady herself, in 1977:

"People from my sort of background needed Grammar schools to compete with children from privileged homes like Shirley Williams and Anthony Wedgwood Benn."

Labour and Conservative together have worked to destroy Grammar Schools and the genuine choice that they offered - why, I don't know for the Tories did, but on the Labour side it's further proof that the inherent socialist idea that "we know what's good for you, you're just an ignorant peasant" is utterly false, and always ends in disaster.

Oh, and Shirley Williams (St Pauls, then Oxford) did more to destroy the opportunities available to bright but impecunious youngsters than almost anyone else in Britain.

How so? My left wing ex-teacher mother regards Williams as a heroine - have I been mislead?

 

[Biscuits_Brown]

How so? My left wing ex-teacher mother regards Williams as a heroine - have I been mislead?

Went to St. Paul's.... So, yeah, you have.

 

[Kitmarlowe]

Went to St. Paul's.... So, yeah, you have.

Missed out Talbot Heath School, another private school, then Somerville College at Oxford, then onto Columbia University in New York under the Fulbright Program



It's always nice to be lectured at by the expensively well educated and patronising "Nanny knows best" idiots

 

[sunoficarus]

David Milliband: Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ed Milliband: Corpus Christi College, Oxford. London School of Economics

Ed Balls: Keble College, Oxford. John F. Kennedy School of Government

Yvette Cooper, aka Mrs Balls: Balliol College, Oxford. Harvard University. London School of Economics

Always amusing seeing the Left sling the 'grammar school/oxbridge' jibe at the Tories

 

[fozzy]

David Milliband: Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ed Milliband: Corpus Christi College, Oxford. London School of Economics

Ed Balls: Keble College, Oxford. John F. Kennedy School of Government

Yvette Cooper, aka Mrs Balls: Balliol College, Oxford. Harvard University. London School of Economics

Always amusing seeing the Left sling the 'grammar school/oxbridge' jibe at the Tories

Yes - but watch the programme. The point Brillo was making, was that the House is full of these clones and the ladder to people who may have not come from the same background, and wish to enter politics has been well and truly kicked away.
I thought it was a fair and balanced programme. Every one got a bit.

 

[Kitmarlowe]

Yes - but watch the programme. The point Brillo was making, was that the House is full of these clones and the ladder to people who may have not come from the same background, and wish to enter politics has been well and truly kicked away.

By the very people who insist on lecturing us how divisive and unfair education by ability is...


Then again, people who want to be in politics should be banned on the grounds that they must be wrong'uns

 

[uncle_vanya]

'Too Posh to Push'. Maybe what the main problem is that many of them are just Sixth Form Geeks playing at being serious adults. Some of them don't appear to have ever had proper jobs where they work by the sweat of their brows in menial tasks like shelf-stacking, cleaning latrines or digging ditches. (or joining the armed forces even if it is for only 3 years)

There is nothing wrong with being educated in the Private sector, and going to 'Oxbridge' for Higher Education. However what many of our elected Boys and Girls tend to forget is that there is another world out there. Sometimes some of our elected Boys and Girls develop an illness called - "Grandiosity" and "Delusions of Grandeur" and "Big-Shotism". They forget that they are Public servants, and not 'Masters of the Universe'.

Maybe what's been happening in some of the North African Mediterranean States should be a wake up call that this could happen here in the UK as well. Public protests against stupidity, greed and 'Big-Shotism' amongst our elected Boys and Girls. But I doubt that this will penetrate their befuddled and self-willed minds. They really do believe themselves to be "Special and Different" from all the rest of us, the Peasants of the UK!!

 

[sunoficarus]

By the very people who insist on lecturing us how divisive and unfair education by ability is...


Then again, people who want to be in politics should be banned on the grounds that they must be wrong'uns

I seem to recall the ancient Greeks believed that anyone who voluntarily put himself forward for public office was a invariably a scoundrel and not to be trusted and used a system of public lottery to select politicians so as to give the poor just as much chance as the rich.

I like their system of dealing with bad politicians too. All the publics complaints against politcians were added up annually and the person who won the most votes in that poll was banished for 10 years.

 

[AndyPipkin]

Errrm, al-Qaeda?

To be fair Osama bin Laden was definitely a 'posh boy' and certainly at least one of the 'British' jihadis went to a top public school.

 

[brighton hippy]

think making it impossible to be an mp before age 35 might help the idea of uni/ special advisor safe seat. gives us clone mps all parties are guilty of this.
go and get a proper job