Sunday, July 17, 2016
The damning fact about every post-war UK cabinet
As Therese May's cabinet reshuffle draws to a close it is worth reflecting on the conclusions of this article in the Independent. The paper says that she has appointed the lowest number of privately-educated ministers in a new Prime Minister’s Cabinet in over 70 years. That statistic includes Labour Governments.
The social mobility charity, the Sutton Trust, has analysed the backgrounds of her new Cabinet to find only 30 per cent have received a private education, the lowest proportion since Labour PM Clement Attlee in 1945.Only 30 per cent of the new cabinet have received a private education, the lowest proportion since Labour PM Clement Attlee in 1945.
They add that the new Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is the only Old Etonian to have remained under Mrs May, while seven ministers went to grammar schools. New Education Secretary, Justine Greening, is the first in the role to have gone to a comprehensive school.
Despite this, Cabinet ministers are still over four times more likely to have gone to a fee-paying school for most of their secondary education when compared with the overall UK population, of which just seven per cent went to private school.
There is a story, which is most probably apocraphal, that when one of the post-war Tory cabinets was considering the mortgage rate, some ministers had to have it explained to them what a mortgage was. I find that unlikely, but when the governance of our country is being conducted by people whose educational experiences are so exclusive, is it little wonder that voters feel that politicians do not relate to their day-to-day concerns?
The social mobility charity, the Sutton Trust, has analysed the backgrounds of her new Cabinet to find only 30 per cent have received a private education, the lowest proportion since Labour PM Clement Attlee in 1945.Only 30 per cent of the new cabinet have received a private education, the lowest proportion since Labour PM Clement Attlee in 1945.
They add that the new Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is the only Old Etonian to have remained under Mrs May, while seven ministers went to grammar schools. New Education Secretary, Justine Greening, is the first in the role to have gone to a comprehensive school.
Despite this, Cabinet ministers are still over four times more likely to have gone to a fee-paying school for most of their secondary education when compared with the overall UK population, of which just seven per cent went to private school.
There is a story, which is most probably apocraphal, that when one of the post-war Tory cabinets was considering the mortgage rate, some ministers had to have it explained to them what a mortgage was. I find that unlikely, but when the governance of our country is being conducted by people whose educational experiences are so exclusive, is it little wonder that voters feel that politicians do not relate to their day-to-day concerns?
