Gove and too many former Etonians get to be PM

kpusa1981

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-26587418
It has only been since 1970s or possibly even later that many people took exams and were able to go university. Once you finished Uni then you could possibly go into politics. The other way to get into politics go to a proper school ie an Elite Boarding school or a Grammar school and go into the Army as well as coming from an Aristocratic family.

How many PMs were educated at Eton and how many were educated at Harrow?

Does anyone agree with Gove on this?

Reply 1

Kierkegaard

Can they do the job? Then I don't give a crap.

Reply 2

Heteronym

Original post by Kierkegaard

Can they do the job? Then I don't give a crap.

I honestly find it disgusting to see how traces of elitism still steer British society and politics. The whole Eton - Oxford - Cabinet route is akin to old-fashioned aristocracies.

I don't even support the existence of schools such as Eton on current terms. Quite cringeworthy if you ask me, and it is nothing but a reflection of how such elitist culture still pervades Britain, as an unwelcome remainder of the past.

Or not so unwelcome...

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 3

Observatory

Original post by kpusa1981

Alternatively, do too poorly in your O Levels to sit university entrance exams, apply to be a bus conductor only to be rejected for being too short, and then finally be forced to seek dishonest employment.

What Gove is criticising is the fact that Cameron has brought a clique of his friends, many of them mediocrities, into government in order to shore up his position. Of course all leaders do this and all serious contenders outside the clique resent it. Just look at Brown's purge of Blair's clique, which was solidified by the election of Ed Miliband to the leadership and David Miliband's subsequent consignment to the outer darkness of New England. The fact that Cameron's clique happen to be connected to him by being Old Etonians, rather than former employees of certain think tanks and the like, is incidental.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 4

Quady

Original post by Heteronym

Damn those elite getting the top jobs!!!

Lets abolish the best school and universities, level the playing feild to the lowest common denominator.

Reply 5

Heteronym

Original post by Quady

Damn those elite getting the top jobs!!!

Lets abolish the best school and universities, level the playing feild to the lowest common denominator.

You seem to vouch for meritocracy and yet you criticise my mocking institutions that care more about your surname or your parent's pockets than real potential - and that is a process that begins at ridicularly early stages. To throw some scholarships here and there does not make it less pathetic.

At the age of thirteen I'm sure you can get a very good education without having to pay 27 thousand pounds per year and feeling like Harry Potter and whatnot.

And, yes, damn those elite getting the top jobs. I doubt a third of them would be in such positions had they not been ridiculously privileged from day one.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 6

Quady

Original post by Heteronym

Probably not.

But neither would most doctors, doesn't mean I'd rather have the less privileged but worse operating on me in an NHS hospital.

Reply 7

nulli tertius

Remember it is only in 1990 that Douglas Hurd was considered unsuitable to lead the Conservative Party because he was an Old Etonian.

Reply 8

cambio wechsel

Original post by Quady

But neither would most doctors, doesn't mean I'd rather have the less privileged but worse operating on me in an NHS hospital.

this rather misses the point. What was being compained about wasn't the number of Oxonians (and Gove is one of these) but the number of Etonians. And while there is often warrant to suppose that someone having the capacity to get into Oxford might be better at his/her job, that seems less obviously true for someone having the capacity to get into Eton at 13.

Reply 9

sallyware

As long as they can do the job why does it matter? You can't start filling quotas to get people into the cabinet based on who studied here and who studied there

The best candidate should get the job regardless if they went to Eton/Oxbrdige or Bolton

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 10

Quady

Original post by cambio wechsel

Fine

Original post by kpusa1981

How many PMs were educated at Eton and how many were educated at Harrow?

Lets stick to the OP then, which asks how many Prime Ministers have there been from Eton and Harrow?

In the last 50 years, two. Cameron and Douglas-Home (annoyingly leaving office in Oct '64, would have been better for my point if he'd left earlier in the year).

Come the next election and there will have been have been four in the previous 150 years. If only that sodding Churchill didn't get into office it'd have been three.

Reply 11

nulli tertius

Original post by Quady

Come the next election and there will have been have been four in the previous 150 years.

Cameron
Douglas-Home
Macmillan
Eden
Churchill (Harrow)
Baldwin (Harrow)
Balfour
Salisbury
Rosebery
Gladstone
Derby
Palmerston (Harrow)

That gets you back 150 years to 1864