Tony Blair claimed to want to create a genuinely meritocratic society in which those who rise to the top do so because of talent and ability rather than a privileged background. As Blair put it,<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Labour\u2019s big idea is the development of human potential, the belief that there is talent and ability and caring in each individual that often lies unnurtured or discouraged.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Blair desires a \u201cjust and fair society where life\u2019s chances are given to all\u201d.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no doubt in my mind that Blair is right about that untapped potential. I used to be a postman, working on the sorting office floor for four years. Then my life chances changed and I ended up an academic teaching and researching at a number of Oxford colleges. I have taught philosophy to Etonians and foreign royals. I\u2019ve run admissions interviews there too, so I know how the system works. I believe the children of the upper middle classes have no more native wit and intelligence than the rest.<\/p>\n Most of us left-leaning middle-class people have two opinions about the lower classes. There\u2019s our \u201cofficial\u201d position, which is that those living on the council estate down the road are certainly not inferior to us in terms of native talent and ability (heaven forbid!)<\/p>\n Dig down a bit, however, and I suspect you\u2019ll find yourself harbouring a slightly less savoury view. It\u2019s not just that we middle classes are the fortunate beneficiaries of better life-chances and a better education. Yes, there may be one or two bright people living on that council estate, but generally speaking, we\u2019re a breed apart, aren\u2019t we? Something akin to natural selection has divided society roughly along class lines into the more and less able. That\u2019s what many right-wingers believe, though they generally admit it only to each other. And it is, I suspect, what the rest of us broadsheet readers believe too, if we’re honest with ourselves. Go on. Tell the truth. Isn\u2019t that what you really<\/span> think?<\/p>\n It must be what Blair thinks. How else can he believe we can create a genuine meritocracy without nobbling private education \u2013 one of the main mechanism by which the upper-middle classes retain their stranglehold on wealth and power?<\/p>\n Blair\u2019s view must be that the current system is already not far off being meritocratic and that, generally speaking, the top positions are already populated by the most talented. The fact that these people invariably turn out to be privately educated upper-middle class folk is down to the fact that the lower orders are, generally speaking, congenitally less able. The system just needs tweaking a bit so that the odd bright council-estate lass can rise more easily through the ranks.<\/p>\n In my experience (purely anecdotal evidence, I admit), privately educated children do not have any more native talent and intelligence than the rest.<\/p>\n It\u2019s just that, deep down, they think<\/span> they do. They come out of private education brimming with a confidence and belief in their own self-worth that one rarely finds among the state-educated. They know they\u2019re going to get decent jobs and earn decent money. And they feel sure they deserve it, too.<\/p>\n I believe that, if we really<\/span> want a meritocracy in this country, there is only one solution. That solution requires we remove that mechanism which, perhaps more than any other, allows a small elite to hand down privilege from generation to generation at the expense of everyone else: private education.<\/p>\n Those who bang on about wanting a genuine meritocracy should cast an eye around the boardrooms of big business. They should select at random a few doctors, lawyers and government ministers. Yes, there\u2019s the occasional grammar school lad, the odd barrow-boy-done-good. But the vast majority is drawn from a small and privileged pool. A few children rise inexorably above the rest, not because they have more talent and ability, but because their parents bought them a leg up at everyone else\u2019s expense. That\u2019s profoundly unfair.<\/p>\n Of course, whoever said life was fair? The trouble is that the present system is not just unjust, it\u2019s also damaging both to the economy and to society. Those who are most talented and able are not where they should be \u2013 they languish as caretakers and security operatives while second-rate hooray Henries get to cash in and work the levers of power.<\/p>\n If we genuinely<\/span> want a meritocracy, then we need to end private education. There’s no realistic prospect of raising the standards of state schools to a similar level (and even if there was, the rich would simply invest still more, to retain the differential).<\/p>\n Let’s end private education. Or else let’s just stop pretending that we desire a \u201cmeritocracy\u201d.<\/p>\n In which case, it will have turned out that New Labour’s “big idea” was a big fib.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tony Blair claimed to want to create a genuinely meritocratic society in which those who rise to the top do so because of talent and ability rather than a privileged background. As Blair put it, \u201cNew Labour\u2019s big idea is the development of human potential, the belief that there is talent and ability and caring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ban-private-schools","category-private-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}