Firstly, unless you abolish private schools, there will always be places where the wealthiest children study. At an early age they learn to rub each others' backs. It's human nature. People defend and support their own. These schools seem to have unlimited funds to indulge and develop their pupil's skills and interests in sport and the arts. They offer astonishing work experience placements and incredible foreign travel.
Michael Gove is trying to take music out of the curriculum in state schools and yet the quality of musicians they can afford to bus into Highgate School up the road from me never ceases to amaze me...
The children in these schools tend to continue their journeys in specific Oxbridge colleges and the cycle continues. My friends who directed plays at Oxbridge were working with actors who went straight into the business without needing to go to drama school and being produced by heirs to huge fortunes, who had money to burn. So when the rest of us were working as ushers in theatres, wondering how on earth we were going to get our heads above the parapet, the Oxbridge grads were being funded by trust fund kids who were looking for jolly japes and had daddies who were looking for tax write offs. Money breeds money.
...And the cycle continues in business. A Cambridge graduate is more likely to hire a Cambridge graduate. It's completely understandable. I personally feel I have more in common with York grads. 3 years of duck shit can be a bonding experience!
There will always be an old boy network which will always be fuelled by birth privilege. These people will always be the ruling elite and they will always be hopelessly out of touch. Cameron knows that. Without privilege he'd be no-one. And until he fills his cabinet exclusively with comprehensive school kids who studied at Stoke University, his promises are empty.
As a slightly upsetting follow up to my blog from yesterday, I understand Jimmy Savile's grave - his actual grave - has been removed, broken up and placed in a skip at the "request of his family." Savile's Hall, a venue in Scarborough, is to be renamed "out of respect for public opinion," and a tribute wall at Leeds Civic Hall recognising his charity work has also been removed. And yet the man has still not been found guilty of a crime. Can we not see what's happening here? This is a witch hunt.
June Thornton - a former nurse - has come forward today to say that she saw Savile in a hospital "abusing" a girl with brain damage. "He started kissing her neck and running his hand up and down her her arms and then started to molest her." Quite what the catch-all word "molest" means in this context I've no idea. She says there was nothing she could do to stop it, because she was "flat on her back" at the time. Was she unable to shout? Was she unable to go to police once she was able to stand up again? If June Thornton really did just stand by and watch these crimes being committed, then she can consider herself to be an accessory and should face punishment herself. This is a nonsense and it must be s
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