Mandy’s class war avoids the real problems

I don’t for a minute believe that Mandelson believes this class war nonsense, brilliantly rubbished by Melanie Phillips today. His decision to reprise the “posh unis don’t let in poor kids” theme is a more a sign that even someone as horribly powerful as Mandy feels the need to kowtow to a certain element of the Labour Party. The Sutton Trust is absolutely correct to point to social segregation as being one of the biggest problems in Britain today – but the problem lies with the schools, not the universities. The suggestion that snobbish admissions tutors are somehow to blame does the working class no favours by deflecting attention from the real problem. If CoffeeHousers will forgive me, here’s a graph to show it:

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Ross Clark

Britain is living beyond its means

This gulf between the quality of independent education and government-run education in Britain is one of the widest in the developed world.