Let's have some stats:
Eton College - 19 Prime Ministers incl. David Cameron
Harrow School - 8 Prime Ministers
Westminster School - 2 Prime Ministers not incl. Nick Clegg
just to name a few.
From 1964 to 1997, all Prime Ministers had been educated at an independent school. This figure rises even more when we look at the Conservative Party. Almost a half of Conservative Party MPs in Parliament attended a Private School and 21 MPs attended Eton College.
I'm making Eton College look like some Prime Minister and MP making factory but may MPs and David Cameron himself are quite coy about it all. The fact that they went to a £28,500 per year school isn't the most election winning point, is it?
However the question is, does this have any real impact on UK Politics and why do Public and Private schools produce so many politicians?
To answer this question, we must look at the type of pupils that would attend a public school. To get into a public school you would have to be reasonably clever and we would also assume that they are from a wealthy family who probably encouraged their child to put education as a priority. This with high quality education and subsequent degree level education does make them a clever person.
Politics is a demanding job and requires someone with relatively high level of education. Unfortunately many poorer families do not see education as a priority and this perhaps explains why such a high proportion of politicians are from a private school.
Does this have any real impact on UK politics? To some extent, yes, they do. On one side of the argument, we could say that being a highly educated person from a respected background, one is quite qualified to do the job but on the other does this mean poorer, less educated people are under represented in parliament?
What do you think?
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