Posh and Posher: Public schoolboys and politics

[Kinkyboots10]

It's a subject I'm very passionate about as I saw what happened to my friends who had gone to what were good local grammar schools like North Manchester in the mid-60's. They wanted to learn and get on but a couple of years in, NMGH went comprehensive and I listened to them complain about how their class was suddenly full of kids who weren't interested in an education and just wanted to mess about.

I was lucky enough to go to Manchester Grammar School and me and the three friends who went with me from our primary school have all done pretty well for ourselves. None of us came from well-off families.

Yes - selection isn't 100% fair but it's not worse than denying motivated kids a decent education.

Hang on Prestwich Blue
Manchester Grammar School is an expensive fee paying private school that belongs to the public school club, the Haedmasters' Conference

What are you on about ???

That may be true Dom, but it's given my nephew a free bursary funded education for the last 7 years. St Bede's, William Hulme (when it was still a grammar) etc offered zero financial help to this gifted and talented child from an extremely modest working class background. MGS now accept boys from the age of 9, again offering full bursaries. My 9 year old son attended an assessment day last friday and out of the 10 little boys there that day, at least half were from inner city primary schools. It may be part of the HMC but it's certainly not elitist.

 

[brooklandsblue2.0]

Hang on Prestwich Blue
Manchester Grammar School is an expensive fee paying private school that belongs to the public school club, the Haedmasters' Conference

What are you on about ???

That may be true Dom, but it's given my nephew a free bursary funded education for the last 7 years. St Bede's, William Hulme (when it was still a grammar) etc offered zero financial help to this gifted and talented child from an extremely modest working class background. MGS now accept boys from the age of 9, again offering full bursaries. My 9 year old son attended an assessment day last friday and out of the 10 little boys there that day, at least half were from inner city primary schools. It may be part of the HMC but it's certainly not elitist.

True MGS do offer full and partial scholarships......but don't tell the 'revolutionaries' of bluemmon 'cos we 'ate dem poshos' 'dey want to run da world dey do'

 

[law74]

The reverse snobbery among the working classes in this country is twice as bad as the perceived snobbery from the upper classes. Some people on here are just so one dimensional and envious. Posh voice+rich parents = hatred/evil/oldboys network.

If you had the same blinkered attitude for someones race/religion you’d be rightly strung up.

BB2, I would be very interested in what pidgeonhole you would place me into
Passed the 11+ went to a grammer school
Mother was head of an old peoples home
Father was a manager in a factory
I am now an investigator (i.e. a managerial role) within the public sector.
But I am a Trade Union activist (former Departmental Whitely, Departmental Committee, and now Branch secretary and likely to be Branch Chair after the next AGM), and far too Left on the political spectrum to even acknowledge Nu-liebour as a true Labour party.
I have also known a lot of snobbery while being educated and have known and served with members of the Gentry (landed and titled Gentlemen).
In my experience, it is not the "inverted snobbery of the working classes" that is the worst, but the real snobbery of "New Money"

On the subject of academic selection, I would much prefer that kids were selected on their ability to learn than their parents ability to pay.
Those that are not gifted in the classroom are often the people in society we most rely on, and can demand a very good wage (plumbers, sparks, joiners, roofers etc etc).
What we need to do is find a way to ensure that EVERY child is given EVERY chance to be the best that they can be.

 

[Damocles]

The reverse snobbery among the working classes in this country is twice as bad as the perceived snobbery from the upper classes. Some people on here are just so one dimensional and envious. Posh voice+rich parents = hatred/evil/oldboys network.

If you had the same blinkered attitude for someones race/religion you’d be rightly strung up.

BB2, I would be very interested in what pidgeonhole you would place me into
Passed the 11+ went to a grammer school
Mother was head of an old peoples home
Father was a manager in a factory
I am now an investigator (i.e. a managerial role) within the public sector.
But I am a Trade Union activist (former Departmental Whitely, Departmental Committee, and now Branch secretary and likely to be Branch Chair after the next AGM), and far too Left on the political spectrum to even acknowledge Nu-liebour as a true Labour party.
I have also known a lot of snobbery while being educated and have known and served with members of the Gentry (landed and titled Gentlemen).
In my experience, it is not the "inverted snobbery of the working classes" that is the worst, but the real snobbery of "New Money"

On the subject of academic selection, I would much prefer that kids were selected on their ability to learn than their parents ability to pay.
Those that are not gifted in the classroom are often the people in society we most rely on, and can demand a very good wage (plumbers, sparks, joiners, roofers etc etc).
What we need to do is find a way to ensure that EVERY child is given EVERY chance to be the best that they can be.

Just ignore him, he posts these things so that people call him on it.

 

[PragueBlue]

The reverse snobbery among the working classes in this country is twice as bad as the perceived snobbery from the upper classes. Some people on here are just so one dimensional and envious. Posh voice+rich parents = hatred/evil/oldboys network.

If you had the same blinkered attitude for someones race/religion you’d be rightly strung up.

Agreed.

 

[waterloo blue]

I remember watching a programme called "something else",in the late '70's,when a interviewer asked a public schoolboy what he wanted to be when he left school.
He replied either "a politician or an army officer ,someone has to keep the proles in their place",that's over 30 years ago and it resonates with me to this day,the parents had obviously indoctrinated him from an early age.
I went to a comprehensive and if you would have interviewed my class at the time I'm sure that no one would have said a revoloutainary freedom fighter,so we could wipe the upper classes off the map.
They're petrified of an informed, intelligent "working class",as there are many more of us than them and having an education system which is designed to fail is a good way of maintaining the staus quo,e.g. all positions of real power staying within a narrow strata of society.

 

[bluetom]

On the subject of academic selection, I would much prefer that kids were selected on their ability to learn than their parents ability to pay.
Those that are not gifted in the classroom are often the people in society we most rely on, and can demand a very good wage (plumbers, sparks, joiners, roofers etc etc).
What we need to do is find a way to ensure that EVERY child is given EVERY chance to be the best that they can be.

I agree.

I don't think that (the current or existing) grammar school system does this. I went to a State Grammar School and it was pretty much a quasi-private school. The majority of people came from private primary schools, house prices in the area are extraordinarily high due to wealthy families wanting to move in to secure a grammar school place, it also made competition to get into the grammar school extremely high. Whilst the local comprehensive was rotting through a complete lack of community investment (as the Grammar soaked it all up).

So what the grammar school system ensured was that bright middle class students - whose families could afford extra tuition and local houses - got a good education and everyone else got a terrible education.

 

[brass neck]

I sure i heard David (posher than the queen) Cameron sympathizing with someone the other day when talking about the nightmare of filling out DLA forms. As we all know as it is trotted out a regular basis for the sympathy vote, Dave's son was disabled and sadly died recently. He was talking about filling out the forms, I immediately thought to my self....hold on, why does a multi-millionaire who is married to one of the richest people in the country, have to fill out any forms....did him and his posh wife seriously claim DLA. Nobody seemed to pick it up. Surely a family with one of the largest combined wealths in Europe doesn't have to access benefits that are being erroded from the people who genuanly need it day by day!!!!!

I'm afraid politics has gone in our country, its been engineered to keep the posh in charge. The biggest upset was the rise of the Labor movement, but a few decades later and that had been paid off, with in a few years it had been infiltrated by public school boys and even Labor (the party of the working man) was gone, but still funded by unions set up to protect us but through legislation and apathy have become mere poodles to the rich. The rich have sorted it now so if anyone sets up a party to serve the working man, they are immediately labeled communist or facist............Our debt could of been written off if the top 10% of money in this country all paid 20% of there wealth. That would never happen. If we hit the bankers to hard they will leave, but people don't seem so bothered about key workers leaving. Strange how you never hear teachers and nurses and police officers threatening to leave if they don't get fair pay........Untill this country wakes up and realizes nothing has changed since the days of lords and serfs.......we will be abused, taxed to death, worked to death. We will have rights gradually eradicated. The media will protect the powers that be and will force public opinion against anyone who says hold on a second...just look at the way the student protests were met with media outrage..........just because a few windows got broken.........we have had it as a nation, the will of the people is never listened to...dont believe me? Way are we still in Afghanistan? and Have you filled up your car with petrol recently?

 

[chav-ER-garry-dough]

I don't think it is fair to generalise so much about private school pupils. I went to one of the best independent schools in London and yes some of us are smarmy bastards and have posh accents but it tended to be the kids from highly pressurised families that wanted to go into politics, there was this one kid who basically from before he was born his father had decided he was going to be a politician.

but on the other hand I think there has to be a radical change in the system. I wasted the privileged education that I was given. at the time science didn't interest me, I was always more interested in art. I think it is only fair that the brightest most interested and driven kids get places at the best schools so that they can fulfil their potential. There are plenty of private schools that have inferior results to even some state schools. And so perhaps the gov should ensure that people like me go to those and all the brain boxes go to the very top schools.


Another point is that perhaps the very exclusive schools such as Eton should remain exclusive as that exclusivity and prestige is what a most of its pupils are paying £30,000 per year for and not the education. There are other schools that are cheaper but with better results. I don't think it's a case of if you go to Eton you can become a Politician , but more... if your daddy goes to the effort and expense of getting you into Eton, you had better make the most of it.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Hang on Prestwich Blue
Manchester Grammar School is an expensive fee paying private school that belongs to the public school club, the Haedmasters' Conference

What are you on about ???

It is now but it wasn't until the Labour government forced it to be. Up to 1976 it was a Direct Grant school, with some of the costs paid by Central Governement and the rest by fees. These fees were based on parental income and, in many cases, the local authority paid them.

So the three lads I went with from our inner-city Primary school, who all lived in terraces houses in Cheetham Hill, had everything paid by Manchester Education Authority. I lived just outside the Manchester boundary so my parent had to pay fees but those fees weren't unreasonable as they were based on their income. That scheme stopped in 1976.

The schools had to choose between going comprehensive or going independent. So MGS went independent and had to charge a level of fees that kept them in business, thereby meaning it was out of reach of boys from working class families. however they worked hard to set up a Bursary Scheme whereby no boy now has to be turned away because their parents can't afford it.

Of those three boys I went with, one is a senior lecturer in Computer Science at Manchester Uni, one is a local solicitor and the other trained as a pharmacist and set up a number of businesses locally. All of these have paid back the money laid out by the council many times over in tax and their contribution to society.