Oh dear, BBC, surely you can do better than this

[steepholm]

Cameron is the 19th prime minister to have attended Eton, apparently. And there were 13 old Etonians in his first front bench team.

Why might this be, do you think? Coincidence? Well, according to the BBC web site, it's all a question of the school's ethos and confidence-building abilities - the kind of thing that could be put in place in my old comprehensive, in fact, if only they had the gumption. Connections to the rich and powerful, the social position of the families that send their children there, and old-fashioned privilege, simply don't come into it. Quite the reverse, it seems, if we're to believe an ex-master, Dr Spence. Cameron's appointment "is a sign, Dr Spence believes, that the Etonian label is no longer a handicap."

You see, in this great country of ours no social handicap is too great to overcome! Only in the United Kingdom...

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I wonder... even if my comprehensive did manage to instil that amount of confidence, something tells me that the newly-confident sons and daughters of brewery workers who attended it would still have failed to fill many places in cabinet. Connections are an important part of the equation, and though I take your point that there are kids who don't come to Eton with elite connections already in place, one of the main reasons for sending them there has always been to correct that deficit.