Latest news with #stateeducation
The Guardian
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
If you went to state school, do you ever feel British life is rigged against you? Welcome to the 93% Club
For the first time in our history, we have a cabinet made up entirely of people who went to state schools. Several, including prime minister Keir Starmer, come from working-class backgrounds; some, such as deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, were raised in conditions of poverty that feel as if they ought to belong to another age. So far so good. What better signs could one ask for to show that Britain is a meritocracy, social mobility is real and anyone can rise to the top provided they have talent, commitment and determination? And yet it might be that in some ways these are exceptions that prove a rule: the rule being that for all the changes made down the years, a private education continues to give a disproportionate advantage to those – currently 7% – who use it. Yes, we have a state-educated cabinet and more state-schooled MPs than ever. Yet more broadly throughout the establishment, when looking at senior positions across Whitehall, the judiciary, law, media and finance, the 7% club continues to hold a disproportionate presence, and therefore to exercise disproportionate cultural and political power. That 7% figure is what gave rise to the 93% Club, the UK's network for state-educated people. Its latest report, the Big State School Survey, merits careful reading by anyone who thinks that because we have the most working-class cabinet of our lifetime, the old class divides are gone and the dream of genuine social mobility has been delivered. The survey suggests that though state-educated students may be the majority by far, it is the 93% who have to fit in with the attitudes and actions of the 7% rather than the other way round. The overwhelming sense of the research is that talk of class continues to be brushed aside as impolite conversation – yet it continues to determine who will thrive, who will falter and who is forced to adopt a new cultural identity just to get into the room. What the survey does is show the emotional cost of having to leave parts of your identity and community behind to thrive. It brings a darker side of social mobility into the light. The journey starts at university. For many, the culture shock is instant. Nearly three-quarters of all state school students reported experiencing it. That figure rises to 91% among those from working-class backgrounds, and 94% of students believe that university culture naturally caters to the wealthy. The little things add up. Three in four students say they miss out on formals and dinners (a component of life at universities such as Oxford and Cambridge). Many say they can't afford to join sports teams or take part in extracurricular activities. The result is not just feeling out of place but feeling like the place was never meant for you despite your having worked hard to get there. The divide doesn't end with a degree. In fact, it deepens: 93% of working-class professionals say their background clashes with workplace culture. Many end up straddling two worlds, the one they came from and the one they now operate in, feeling that they don't fully belong to either. To fit in, people say they start to change. Accent. Clothes. Hobbies. Even what they eat and drink. These are not small cosmetic tweaks. They're survival tactics in environments that reward polish over potential. And while a lot of this happens quietly – with a smile, a nod, a stiff upper lip mentality – the impact is loud and lasting; 61% of respondents said they had to leave their community behind to progress. Nearly half said their friendships changed. Some grew distant from their families. This is not social mobility – it's a social trade-off. I've long been a fan of the 93% Club, not least because its 29-year-old founder, Sophie Pender, knows first-hand what it means to come from nothing and make it in the City with few tools or support at her disposal. And what's refreshing about what her organisation is doing is that it's not accepting the status quo or burning it down. Instead, it is retooling the idea of an old boys' network to serve state school graduates – an old boys' and old girls' network for the many, not the few, you might say. The question now is: do we want a country where success still depends on knowing the right people, sounding the right way and fitting into the right mould? Or do we want one where talent is prized and diversity of thought guaranteed? Real social mobility shouldn't come at the cost of your character. It shouldn't mean sanding down your accent, hiding where you're from or second-guessing how you dress, speak or behave. It should mean being able to walk into any room and be taken seriously. A cabinet that reflects that reality is a start – but it can't be the end goal. If we want lasting change, we need more than symbolism – we need infrastructure. A nationwide state-school alumni network that offers the kind of cultural capital, career support and peer sponsorship long taken for granted by the privately educated. A network that not only helps people navigate elite spaces but also mobilises them to rework the cultures within them. The 93% Club has already made significant strides in creating this infrastructure, but it still has work to do. They're asking others to join in – to share their time, open doors and help rewire the systems that still quietly reward one kind of background over another. It's not a pipe dream. It's a proven model that private schools have used for centuries. It's high time we repurposed it to build a country where people can succeed by not leaving their identity at the door but by walking through it the way they are. Alastair Campbell is a former journalist turned strategist and spokesperson for the Labour party. He is now a writer, podcaster, consultant strategist and mental health campaigner
Daily Mail
01-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Labour fears Farage far more than it cares about the white working class
The long, miserable saga of the Labour Party 's war on good state education stretches back through many decades of 'progressive' experiments and plain neglect. It is tempting to think that their parallel hostility to private schools is partly motivated by the proof fee-charging schools provide, that good schooling is still possible. If they could tax them out of existence and drive them abroad, it would be easier to pretend that publicly funded education is satisfactory. Well, of course it is – for some children. The Labour elite know this very well, as they take elaborate steps to avoid the sorts of schooling most children have to endure, hiring private tutors, moving into costly catchment areas of exceptional academies, or developing a convenient enthusiasm for religion. Catholic schools, schools in pleasant rural areas, schools in well-off suburbs and above all schools whose pupils generally have the support of strong, stable families do reasonably well, even despite the crazy, ever-changing policies visited on them by Leftist ideologues. But the worst losers from all this experimentation have been the white working class, who have suffered from the death of traditional industry, the general decline of stable married families, the absence of fathers and the resulting break-up of family and kinship in urban areas. This is typical of Left-wing policies in modern Britain. The ideas most warmly embraced by the north London Leftist elite are also the ideas that do the most damage to the voters who have for decades kept Labour in power. For a long time there really was not much those traditional voters could do about this gap between promise and fulfilment. Now, thanks to the rapid growth of Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, there is. In fact, Mr Farage is so keen to appeal to Labour defectors that he is becoming quite Left-wing in his late middle age. Whether this is sincere or not, we have yet to discover. But it is certainly working. Labour voters are deserting their ancestral party. And the Labour high command are panicking. The latest to do so is Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson. She has led the charge against private schools, using punitive taxes to drive poorer families into the state sector. Now Ms Phillipson is moving in on Mr Farage's left flank, complaining that white working-class children are being betrayed and left behind. She is quite right to say this. New data shows that such children are doing acceptably well only in a tiny 21 of the 3,400 secondary schools in England. She promises an inquiry into this shocking failure, which may even report while she is still in office. But what will it tell us that we do not already know? The poorer your area, the worse your school is likely to be. Ms Phillipson's actions haven't been much help so far. Shadow Schools Minister Neil O'Brien accuses her of cutting support for able pupils in mathematics, physics, Latin and computing. The grim truth is that, despite its claimed preoccupation with education, Labour has never had much of a plan for helping the children of the poor. Its obsession with encouraging mass migration and 'rubbing the Right's nose in diversity' meant it tended to view the white working class not as friends but as bigots, for it was among such citizens that the tougher consequences of such immigration were most keenly felt. New Labour's shiny New Britain never arrived in the grim housing estates, blasted by unemployment and anti-social behaviour, where good education is still a dream.
