I don’t care where Jo Johnson went to school. Here’s why.
Hours after Jo Johnson was appointed to his new job as head of the No 10 policy unit, several commentators took to Twitter to merrily announce that the prime minister, the head of his policy unit, his chief of staff, and the No 11 chief economic adviser all went to Eton. The political implication being that the prime minister is out of touch with voters and careless about social mobility.
I can’t be the only Labour member who thinks this is mildly interesting as a piece of information but pretty stupid as a line of political argument. It’s not that I don’t believe that the coalition is out of touch and doing serious damage to social mobility. I do. It’s just that I think that focusing on which school people went to is the wrong way to make that argument, for three reasons.
One, it’s pointless and pretty mean, since the individual concerned most likely had no influence on where they went to school. That’s why I make a distinction between criticising David Cameron for being sent to Eton at age 13 (not cool) and criticising him for choosing to join the Bullingdon Club at age 19 (perfectly acceptable, on grounds of poor taste alone).
Two, going to an independent school does not preclude politicians from improving social mobility once in government. I know this because Clement Attlee (Haileybury College) led the government that created the NHS. Tony Blair (Fettes) led the government that created the minimum wage. That leftwing lion, Tony Benn, attended Westminster School.
Third, and most seriously, focusing on where a handful of people in government went to school is a diversion from the real damage the coalition is doing to social mobility. There is plenty of evidence of this in the government’s policies on the economy, on education and on welfare, without focusing on what school uniform the prime minister’s mates once wore.
My point is this: if you disagree with someone, pick on them for the bad decisions they’ve made as adults, not the decisions that were made for them as kids. After all, the coalition is making more than enough bad decisions to choose from.
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Robert Allen is a member of Progress and tweets @roballen30
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I have to disagree with you Robert, I personally don’t care which school he went to. However when the majority of British population did not go to a private school and we have cabinet full of old Etonian’s, this cabinet will obviously be out of touch with ordinary people because they can’t understand how hard life is for ordinary people, as result of politics being dominated by private school graduates, it became a narrow career that is almost impossible for individuals from working class background to climb the political ladder which has detrimental impact on social mobility, Tony Blair went to a private school, however he didn’t make his cabinet full of his school friends, Blairs’s cabinet had representation from wide range of backgrounds, it wasn’t dominated by private school graduates, because of that he was successful at winning three elections, I think if we allow politics be dominated by individuals from a private school backgrounds, it will be the end of social mobility through the UK, we should create opportunities for individuals from working class background to climb the political ladder, I think we have enough private school graduates in UK, they are not representative of modern Britain, if we didn’t make politics more representative then Labour won’t be able win elections