The people who have everything also run everything.

Of course, we could look at this from the converse:

Are (or were) comprehensive schools failing our children? Should they be achieving much more?

Certainly there were many 'bog-standard' comprehensives which failed so many, according to the public school educated Mr Blair and the grammar school educated Mr Campbell.

This is about using your wealth to buy privilege and power and whether it is fair or democratic.

So would you do away with private education?

The ideal would be for all children to have received the same type of education at their bog-standard comprehensive schools as those at fee-paying schools to give them all an equal chance.

But so many with common sense as well as brains would never go into politics anyway - just because they do have common sense.

GG13 - a large chunk of that tax will be VAT on their purchases, not necessarily their income

Why is that every time the wealthy are criticised certain people on here assume that the rest of us are envious. I don't think that's the case at all. what we are criticising are the people who have power over us, like the politicians. There are some politicians who are from fairly ordinary backgrounds but a lot are from families, often with inherited wealth - Osborne, Cameron, Hunt, Johnson. None of these know how the rest of us live. BJ and JH are now talking the talk because they want to be the new PM. But they did nothing about the years of austerity that we've just experienced.

So agree Grany . Also need common sense to run the country which seems sadly lacking in the “ brainy elite” that are attempting to run the country. Sick and tired of seeing people ( working,unemployed and disabled) alike trying to survive on a daily basis. Should be compulsory for the lot of them to deal with foodbanks and poverty so they see how real people live

I’m certainly not envious! If I stop and think about my life and ask myself if I could be any happier, the answer is no. I am completely content with my lot.

But I am concerned about fairness and democracy.

I'm sure it was said by some Government bod that salaries should reflect the importance of the job done and the number of people willing to do it or something similar, so why are MPs (who wouldn't be an MP - great salary, expenses, pension etc) paid paid so much (they also give themselves a good payrise every year) when carers, nurses etc are paid so badly? What would the country do if there were no carers?

I don't think MPs are in fact overpaid.

Compare their salaries and even that of the Prime Minister with those of some Local Government Officers running little councils.
Top Union executives
Those in charge of the Health Service
Quango chiefs
etc
How can their jobs compare with those of PM?

In the vast majority of cases, in my experience, people who have everything not only take it for granted but feel that they either ‘deserve’ it or have some inalienable right to it.

That’s the real problem — the “I’m all right Jack” mentality.

My own pet hate is celeb culture, and the outrageously high salaries and fees paid to actors/comedians and public figures. Even people I used to respect have now plummeted in my estimation thanks to being happy to take easy money they don’t need by doing (sometimes excruciatingly bad) TV ads.

or, as TheOldDear has just said:

celebrities such as
Christ Evans
Claudia Winkleman
Gary Lineker?
Footballers?
etc

how do their obscene salaries compare to that of MPs running the country?

Not Christ Evans
(I elevated him more than he ever deserves)

Chris Evans

(He'd probably like that)

Agree about the BBC salaries. Thieving gits.

Its probably doing BJ a power of good living in a "small" flat and having trouble with the neighbours, bit more like the rest of us. This country has been run from the top down for a 1,000 years going to be difficult to change. Perhaps Comrade Corbyn will help us! I do think the private schools should go.

It makes me so mad when I read posts knocking people who went toOxford or Cambridge and saying that they come from rich and privileged families. Of course, some of them do, but there are families like ours who aren’t rich or privileged, but managed to give our children an excellent education, just because we were determined to do it and worked really hard to give them the chance. You just have to believe you can do it and work incredibly hard to fund it. We put our daughter through private education because we were determined to and we look back and wonder how we did it. She was given a bursary, which helped, but it was jolly hard work! She went to university and then did a Master’s at Oxford, where she met her husband, who was on a two year scholarship from the US. Now they live in New York and both have excellent jobs. It’s a matter of determination and really hard work, but it pays off in the end.

By the way, I was a teacher at our local comprehensive and obviously knew a lot about it. I wasn’t convinced our daughter would get the best possible education there, which is why we decided to send her to private school, even though we knew it would be a huge commitment.

"Perhaps the way to even things out would be to stop money being passed at death to the next generation, i.e. everyone starts on a level playing field. Money from estates could be re-distributed annually across the population so that everyone gets an equal share." I think not, where would the drive to succeed come to be?

There are lots of single parent families, so no "we".
Just one parent.
There are children whose parents have health issues, drug issues, mental health problems.
There are people with no family support, not even access to their own bathroom.
There are families relying on food banks.
There are homeless families.

I would say its fairly obvious the odds aren't in their favour.

Lessimore well said. You have the facts and figures as opposed to the poster who just said oh here we go bashing etc. It’s a Democracy we can do that especially when it’s deserved. Nothing will change till the country is not run by Old Etonians , drug taking so called journalists like Bo Jo taking in 250 K for a column which he said he just knocked out on a Sunday morning and the money was just ‘chicken feed ‘. Disgusting! They really do not know about the real world. Domestic abuse, love children serial adultery is OK for the party of Family Values as long as they don’t have to stick to those values. What’s happening here is the way Trumps behaviour has been normalised. And those Brexit MEP’s are just as bad taking the salary and pension!

Humptydumpty, re: your point about the passing on of wealth to children.

If Mr. Dyson couldn’t leave his wealth to his family where would it go?
To the government?
End of a business?
Maybe not but there may just be a huge loss of employment and I put to the economy.

Input!!

The article is interesting, backed up by facts and thought provoking. It's not about private education or Labour politicians who were privately educated.
I fail to understand this " what about " mentality which does nobody any favours.

"There is a clear and undeniable link between the entrenched and calcifying class stratification in British society and the inept chaos in which we currently find ourselves"

This is the crux of the article, not whether or not Tony Blair was rich or Prince Charles did well at University.

There is no point relishing the past and talking about night schools, bettering yourself, putting children through private education and so on. Those days are gone.

(Sat 06-Jul-19 00:06:40) Yet many people did and do study although their stomach is rumbling. People in the public eye who have made it in the world are always telling everyone how deprived their childhoods were, yet they succeeded.

I think that is more of a right-wing trait; I don't notice it on from the left so much. The far-right seem to believe that each person has the capacity to succeed and that if you don't it is because you are a skiver, etc., or, if it's themselves, that someone else is responsible.

The parable of the tram drivers son or the council-house childhood is just to prove that their view is correct, isn't it?

No one can ask to be born into this world, and when we are, no one can select the parents they are born to or the circumstances those parents will raise any child in.

Some children will be born into wealth and privilege, while others will have parents that although on limited means, will strive above everything else to give their children a good home and education.

Other children, unfortunately, will be born to parents who are unable to cope with children or a home environment in general. In these households, abuse and violence are often rampant, and the children's education receives little or no attention.

The above sets the basic environment for how any child will cope in education and what they will have achieved at its outcome. However, I am a person who believes that everyone born into this world has natural talents or skills that if found can be exploited to make them an asset to our society and bring success in their working lives.

I have stated previously on this forum that I at times have the privilege of acting as a tutor on Unite and other trade union workplace safety courses. In that, many who attend those courses come from a background of not doing well in their early year's education, but wish to bring better safety standards to their workplace and at the same time better themselves.

It is often for many of the above the first time they have entered a "classroom environment" since underachieving in their primary education, and apprehension can be seen in many of them on the first day of any stage one course. However, it is also very often that those persons overcome that trepidation and go on to complete the full four weeks of training, and enter the forefront of a career in industrial safety.

The above I give as an example of what can be achieved by almost anyone no matter what their background upbringing when lifelong learning is freely available

As stated no one born into this world can choose their parents or the manner of their upbringing. However, all can change and build on that background however base that may be to achieve given the opportunity. That stated, Britain now so often fails its population in the field of lifelong learning, that many never find that opportunity to fulfil their full potential.