I have been reading The Third Man, the autobiography of Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of New Labour, who ruled Britain from 1997 to 2005. Mandelson was a cabinet minister under Tony Blair (though twice dismissed on rather petty grounds) and effectively deputy prime minister under Gordon Brown. In between he was Britain's Commissioner at the European Union responsible for the international trade talks and the failed attempt to lower trade barriers between emerging nations and the rich. It ought to be seen as one of the most successful political careers of his generation, yet Mandelson is probably regarded as a failure.
He is a man who is regarded with suspicion; a Machiavellian character who plotted behind the scenes, open to any form of dishonest spinning of the truth. Although he is the grandson of Herbert Morrison, deputy prime minister in the 1945-51 Attlee administration, he is not a typical Laborite. His parents were upper middle class, he attended a very good Grammar School in North London and went on to Oxford University. He was aways privileged, with easy entry into the higher echelons of the Labour Party.
With Blair and Brown he set out to change the party from the unelectable, far-left, rump that supported Michael Foot in wanting to ban-the-bomb, into the progressive party of Tony Blair that wanted to occupy the middle ground. Much of what he achieved was a superficial gloss. Blair was a consummate showman; articulate with a barrister's silver tongue, he could work equally well with Clinton and Bush and was able to persuade his colleagues into several unpopular wars. But many of his ideas were impractical (taking unruly teenagers to ATMs to pay a fine on the spot to policemen, for instance) and these would irk Gordon Brown who considered himself to be the brains behind New Labour and had been in one colossal sulk since 1994. When Brown finally achieved the leadership of the Labour Party that he had always craved, he proved himself to be wholly unsuitable as Prime Minister and completely unelectable.
The picture he presents of the internecine wars within Labour during the years in government may be true, but one would have to read Blair's and Brown's autobiographies to be sure, but Mandelson has a reputation for dissembling and I wouldn't trust him to deliver the post let alone the truth.
At the end of the book he comes up with the following: the goal... is to create the sort of society in which the daughter of a Hartlepool shop assistant has as much chance of becoming a High Court Judge as the daughter of a Harley Street doctor.
This statement is so awry that it takes my breath away.
First of all, the daughter of a Grantham shopkeeper, has already become, not a High Court Judge, but Prime Minister of the UK: Margaret Thatcher.
Second, the Grammar Schools, from which he benefited, have already caused a great deal of social mobility. The writer is himself the son of a bar steward who became an internationally renowned doctor thanks to those same Grammar schools. Yet it has always been Labour Party policy to have comprehensive schools in which bright boys and girls are lost within a morass of low-achievers and instead of being stimulated by good teaching, resort to being the class clown to get attention.
Third, being a High Court Judge, takes a certain degree of brain power. Although clever people may come from any stratum of society, most clever people have already found their niche. There is not a huge reservoir of brain-boxes among the children of shop assistants. Intelligence is not entirely genetic, but it is in part. It is true that very few students at Oxford and Cambridge come from working class backgrounds, but that is not because of lack of opportunity.
Fourth, High Court Judges are hardly the example I would set before my children. A recent report of the foul language issuing from a female judge prosecuted for drunken driving is hardly what I want from my kids.
Fifth, there is a distressing tendency for people in government to rate intellectual skills above more practical ones. I would rather my son were a good carpenter than a politician with a reputation for mendacity, no matter how high and mighty he might be. Even more, I would want him to be a man of integrity even if his joints didn't fit.
4 comments:
I read somewhere recently that 80% of the millionaires in the US made it themselves. When govt starts deciding who gets what, it's always just them taking it from those who earned it and giving it to some who did not, this bring the leftist idea of egalitarianism.
Your statement is extremely striking:
"It is true that very few students at Oxford and Cambridge come from working class backgrounds, but that is not because of lack of opportunity."
So your point is that children from 'working class' families are by genetics or other over-riding factor, innately inferior.
One could pass a law, then, allowing monkeys to apply to an elite English university. The opportunity would be there for the monkey, but very few (if any) of them would score well on their college boards.
I cannot believe that a plot of the IQs of the offspring of children from privileged would differ at all from a distribution of children from 'working class' families. Both would follow the familiar bell curve of.
Following your assertion, then, working class children are invariably and irrevocably stupid. All of the outreach to such children would not correct the core problem, which is that they are quite simply just dim.
Sounds like the attitude of an aristocrat from the 17th century.
If what you say is true (that the elite colleges in England are populated primarily by the children of the upper-class), I would ascribe it more likely due to admitting the children of graduates, or outright discrimination against those not in proper society.
Then again, England is famous for having a strict class system. Your description of Oxford and Cambridge indicates that that class system is alive and well in England.
I thought that had changed at least somewhat.
Don't you believe that intelligence is partly inherited? Difficult to measure because IQ tests are culturally biased.
What you may not realize is that from 1944 to 1974 all British children had to sit an IQ test at 11 which selected them for an academic or a non-academic further education. There was no financial inhibition to continuing that education to first or higher degree level - all paid for by the taxpayer.
This made for an enormous social upheaval. Working class kids like me had an opportunity to enter the professions and even to become prime minister (like John Major).
In the 1970s there came a fashion for 'comprehensive education'. Everybody was supposed to go the neighborhood school and to receive the same education. Social mobility ceased. Middle class parents went in for selection by mortgage. The houses nearest the best schools cost more than identical houses near the worst schools. People impoverished themselves to get into the best schools or pulled whatever strings they could to beat the system (Tony Blair was a famous example, but many in the Labour cabinet did the same for their children.)
As a medical student I had to visit one such comprehensive school with 2000 students. It was situated in a large area of local authority rented housing. The only professional person on the estate was the local doctor. The educational standard was abysmal. Bullying was rife. Anyone who showed a spark of intelligence (and there were very few) had it beaten out of them. Their only defence was to be the class clown.
It sems to me that if you select for high IQ then what is left has a lower IQ and although intelligence is not all genetic, quite a lot of it is. Those who for 30 years were creamed off into academic education are themselves the privileged. It follows then that while there is some overlap between the Bell shaped curves of the intelligence between the children of graduates and artisans, there will been different medians.
I do object to your idea that the less intelligent are in someway inferior. I have relatives who are less intelligent than I, but they are of more worth. Without my son, the engineer, I would be lost. The world needs plumbers and electricians more than it needs journalists and intellectuals.
The class system in the UK is very different from what it was when I was young. We are very egalitarian now with equality of opportunity very prevalent. But you can't make people equal by giving them equal opportunity; you have to have positive discrimination in favor of the less talented and extra burdens on the more talented.
Don't you believe that intelligence is partly inherited? Difficult to measure because IQ tests are culturally biased.
What you may not realize is that from 1944 to 1974 all British children had to sit an IQ test at 11 which selected them for an academic or a non-academic further education. There was no financial inhibition to continuing that education to first or higher degree level - all paid for by the taxpayer.
This made for an enormous social upheaval. Working class kids like me had an opportunity to enter the professions and even to become prime minister (like John Major).
In the 1970s there came a fashion for 'comprehensive education'. Everybody was supposed to go the neighborhood school and to receive the same education. Social mobility ceased. Middle class parents went in for selection by mortgage. The houses nearest the best schools cost more than identical houses near the worst schools. People impoverished themselves to get into the best schools or pulled whatever strings they could to beat the system (Tony Blair was a famous example, but many in the Labour cabinet did the same for their children.)
As a medical student I had to visit one such comprehensive school with 2000 students. It was situated in a large area of local authority rented housing. The only professional person on the estate was the local doctor. The educational standard was abysmal. Bullying was rife. Anyone who showed a spark of intelligence (and there were very few) had it beaten out of them. Their only defence was to be the class clown.
It sems to me that if you select for high IQ then what is left has a lower IQ and although intelligence is not all genetic, quite a lot of it is. Those who for 30 years were creamed off into academic education are themselves the privileged. It follows then that while there is some overlap between the Bell shaped curves of the intelligence between the children of graduates and artisans, there will been different medians.
I do object to your idea that the less intelligent are in someway inferior. I have relatives who are less intelligent than I, but they are of more worth. Without my son, the engineer, I would be lost. The world needs plumbers and electricians more than it needs journalists and intellectuals.
The class system in the UK is very different from what it was when I was young. We are very egalitarian now with equality of opportunity very prevalent. But you can't make people equal by giving them equal opportunity; you have to have positive discrimination in favor of the less talented and extra burdens on the more talented.
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