Sam Ghibaldan: Class war starts with divisions forged in schools

Published on Wednesday 30 December 2009 20:04

IT'S all a question of origins. Do the senior ranks of the Tory party exemplify the survival of the fittest or – as Gordon Brown would have it in his New Year's message yesterday – are they just the systematic perpetuation, generation after generation, of the privately educated "privileged few"?

David Cameron, our prime minister-in-waiting, is the likeable, polished model of the timeless toff; George Osborne, vying to be our chancellor of the exchequer, a smug earlier prototype. Boris Johnson, part of the Old Etonian vanguard and the mayor of London, performs as the classic upper-class twit, his innate ability to make a bumbling fool of himself obscuring entire reservoirs of knowledge and a formidable intelligence.

Many in Labour's ranks must have been itching to relaunch the class war since Mr Cameron became Tory leader. Now, with Labour desperately needing to reinforce its core support for the coming electoral battle, that offensive is under way. The Prime Minister carried out the first sortie, describing Tory tax policy as "dreamt up on the playing fields of Eton". Now, he has gone further, using the platform of his normally moderate New Year message to brand the Tories the party of privilege, which would look after its own "while the majority lose out". The gloves are off.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson – who was formerly a postman – has explained that Labour's objective is to highlight the narrow, unrepresentative background of senior Tories, who, he argues, feel they have an "entitlement to power". Underlining his point, he has made it clear he is talking about "public schoolboy millionaires".

Ouch! The classless "New Britain" projected by Tony Blair in the early days of "New Labour" has been forgotten. Champagne socialists have been none too discreetly brushed under the carpet at Labour Party headquarters. No longer are we all representatives of a single, amorphous British culture. In just a couple of electoral cycles, Labour has subdivided Britain into the rich upper classes and those of us who have to work because we need the money.

It is quite an important dividing line. Labour is being careful not to have a go at the better-off, middle classes, whose electoral support the party needs. The focus of Labour spleen is the very privileged Tory elite.

Do the rest of us care, or is this just more political twaddle, destined to be consigned to the bitter annals of an appalling year for politics?

Labour Cabinet ministers Tessa Jowell and Peter Mandelson believe this tactic will backfire on Labour at the general election. Ms Jowell has called for the class-war rhetoric to be abandoned before it all turns into a "hideous to and fro of personality attack".

You can be pretty certain that Mr Brown is taking this tack because Labour's opinion polling shows it will motivate its core supporters to vote come the election. But that doesn't make it any more palatable.

It is an age-old political tactic: strengthen your appeal by identifying a common enemy. It doesn't matter so much what your selected foe says, provided they have some distinguishing social, religious or physical characteristic. And that makes Labour's attack on Tory politicians because of their privileged background – rather than the impact of their policies – the barely acceptable thin end of a particularly nasty wedge.

Strip away the cynical politicking though, and there is a real issue underneath. In a democratic country of some 60 million people that aspires to equality of opportunity, it's distinctly odd that more than half of those attending the Tory shadow cabinet went to fee-paying, independent schools, let alone that Mr Cameron is seeking to be the 19th British prime minister from a single school, Eton.

The Tories will naturally tend to attract better-off supporters and Labour those from less affluent backgrounds. Even so, the number of privately educated senior Tories does seem disproportionate.

The issue of concern, according to Mr Johnson, is that the educational and financial advantages of the upper classes mean they don't have any experience of life as it affects everyone else; and, given the preponderance of such individuals among the Tories, they aren't, therefore, equipped to govern us. That doesn't stack up, though; by that logic, you could argue that Mr Johnson is unqualified to be Home Secretary because of his lack of a legal background.

The reality Mr Johnson is highlighting is that the Tory shadow cabinet isn't representative of an open meritocracy, but rather of a society where inherited privilege still gives a few individuals significant advantage over the rest. If that is true, the issue isn't so much the make-up of the Tory party, but the society that allows such divisions to persist.

Can we do anything about that? Well, it isn't only wealthy parents that can bestow advantages upon their offspring. Parents from all walks of life pass on to their children positive attitudes to education, ambition and health – all things that make a massive difference to their life chances.

But, if we aspire to a more open, meritocratic society, something more could be done to even up the odds. It would start with education.

Allowing the wealth (or, indeed, religion) of parents to be the key factor in deciding which schools their children attend simply perpetuates social division from infancy. If this seriously concerns Labour, it should abolish private and religious schools.

In the meantime, though, we should treat everyone as individuals, not as representatives of the school their parents chose for them. Any other approach just exacerbates division.

What voters have to do is decide which party is best able to govern.

Rather than the schools attended by its opponents, Labour should be telling us about its own plans for government.

After all, it's not like we need reminding that many senior Tories have privileged backgrounds. Frankly, it is evident every time they speak.

Labour's attacks are no more than political posturing, little more than inverted snobbery.

Like anyone else, politicians should be judged on what they say and do, not on where they went to school.

For the record, I won't be voting for the Tories. Not for all the gold in their election coffers. Not because I went to a comprehensive school, but because of what they say and do.