Certain elements of the blogosphere have gone into predictable tumult over David Cameron’s announcement regarding all women shortlists. Fiona and Joanne Cash have made the counter-point very well – that for all the talk of meritocracy and localism (both of which I’m an enormously strong believer in), women candidates haven’t been playing on a level playing field. Despite the A-List and other reforms introduced since David Cameron’s election, local Associations have clearly not gone far enough towards selecting able women. All too often, local associations have tended to select people who represent an image of a Conservative MP – male, public school educated, married, middle aged – rather than being truly representative of either their constituency or modern Britain.
However, it isn’t my intention to use this post to rehearse arguments that have been made very well elsewhere. I do believe, though, that a lot of the debate about equality misses some fundamental points. Although it is right that we need desperately need more female and BME MPs in the party to increase our representativeness of society, we need to guard against what I would describe as a superficial approach to equality. It is all well and good having a shortlist of six women or six BME candidates, but if all the women went to Cheltenham Ladies College and all the BME candidates went to Harrow does that really make us more representative? Does that really make us more in touch with black youths in the inner cities and the marginalised white working class?
An issue we really need to address, which goes beyond the discussion of All Women Shortlists, is illuminated by a startling statistic. 7% of young people go to independent schools, 93% are state educated. Compare this to the fact that 60% of Conservative MPs are privately educated, with this set to fall to 52% in the next Parliament. This is illustrated below:
It actually amazes me that, at the same time as discussion has raged about All Women Shortlists we haven’t had more discussion aimed at ensuring that we are more representative of the nation in terms of background.
I have said many times that achieving social mobility should be a real priority of the next Conservative Government. The failure, documented in Alan Milburn’s excellent report on Public Access To The Professions, of the Government regarding social mobility is one of their most lamentable failures in office. We were right to point out how outrageous it was that people from independent schools were so over-represented throughout the professions. I pointed out that the extreme social exclusivity of the professions and also the top universities is not acceptable in modern Britain. We are right in calling for the professions to be more representative of modern Britain. We also need our Party to be much more representative of modern Britain. We must make our Party the embodiment of the socially mobile, representative, meritocratic Britain that we want to see.
We are right to prioritise social mobility. But we must ensure that the Conservative Party is the embodiment of social mobility in action. We must ensure that our Parliamentary Party embodies the career open to talent and is truly representative of modern Britain.
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This issue – rather than all-women shortlists (which I support) – has done more to keep the Conservative Party out of Government than a lack of women candidates.
Until DC the last Leader of the Conservative Party to go to Public School was Alec Douglas Home. All the others were from working class backgrounds and the product of grammer schools. The State provided them with a first class education, and in turn they prospered. Perhaps the current change at the top is a reflection of a systemic failure to properly tackle state education in this country. Talk to the universities find out how many have to do remedial english and maths programmes.
I can see what you’re getting at Dave, but I think you’ve fallen into the same traps as the government. You’re fiddling with the outcomes of a broken system not looking to fix the system. It’s like fixing the stable door after the horses have bolted.
What your graph says to me – as a former pupil of a comprehensive from the East End of Glasgow and proud of it – is that something’s happening in private schools that’s being suffocated in state ones. I’m not talking in financial terms – a friend of mine who has taught in both swears that, ultimately, the only sort of education is self-education. Are private schools maybe not nearly as scared of that dangerous phenomenon as the political masters of state ones?
S, since Alec Douglas-Home lost the 1964 election, the proportion of Conservative MPs educated at private school has ranged from a low of 60% to a high of 81% in 1966. At no point has it even come close to reflecting the general population. So your point about a change at the top doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. State school educated people have always been under-represented in the ranks of Tory MPs and the continuing under-representation in the early 21st Century must be a cause of real concern to all of us who believe in social mobility.
The reasons for that are simple, David. Until the 1960′s, the grammar schools were providing a steady stream of talented people who would have fitted the bill easily. After all, in the mid-sixties, private school pupils were less than half of the Oxbridge intake and the grammar schools were well-represented in the professions (e.g. one M. Thatcher). However, the Tory Party has never believed in meritocracy and still doesn’t. It pays lip service to it but the One Nation patricians at the top have no intention of allowing selection procedures to operate in a way which would threaten their sense of entitlement, and that of their friends and families. That’s every bit as true today as it was in the sixties. It also explains the Tories’ willingness to destroy the grammar schools, the one truly effective instrument of meritocracy since 1945. Tick-box quota filling (“reflecting the general opoulation”) is not meritocracy. Rather, it is a pretext for kicking meritocracy into the long grass.
Bang on. I couldn’t agree more with the thrust of the article. Mr McGowan is also spot on in ruing the demise of the grammar school system, which – while imperfect – was extremely effective at allowing those without privileged backgrounds to successfully challenge the hegemony of the privileged on merit.
Michael McGowan – an interesting point. However, it ignores the fact that at the height of the grammar school era, the proportion of Conservative MPs going to private schools was actually higher than is the case today. It was 75% in 1951, 76% in 1955, 72% in 1959, 75% in 1964, an astonishing 81% in 1966, 74% in 1970, 75% in 1974 and 73% in 1979. If your point was correct, then you would expect these numbers to have been markedly lower.
Social engineering is for socialists.
Its fine to argue that we should recruit people from outside traditional areas and attract all the talent we can.
The public will vote for a competent government that exposes a good plan for government that they are convinced of the need for.
If its all about looking like the electorate and pandering to minorities then we should sack David Cameron and George Osborne straight away. But nobody wants this. As the Crewe and Nantwich by-election proves ( where a bad evil kitten murdering toff Tory male candidate beat a female socialist candidate to over turn a massive Labour majority ) the general public just doesn’t care about this. Its only media types and people who think their careers will be easier if they can rule out the competition right from the beginning who are pushing it.
Man in A Shed – Denying that a problem exists (and at best putting your head in the sand) and bandying round words like ‘socialist’ is a trite response to a very important issue. Is the ‘minority’ we are “pandering” to the 93% of the population who attended state school or the more than 50% of the population who are women?
The last month has me wondering whether we’re all being suckered into voting for ‘Blue Labour”.
Man in a Shed hits the nail squarely on the head.
The public HATE social engineering yet the party continues down this line with its women shortlists. Let’s have an all-black candidate shortlist, an all-gay, all-lesbian too. Why not? If its social inclusion the party wants then it will reap what it sows.
The last thing UK plc needs is to be run by people who are put in a position of power because of positive discrimination. So what if 80% of all Conservative MPs are privately educated. We all know a good private education turns out very well rounded and thoughtful people. People who can think, who are dependable in a crisis. LEADERS!
What UK plc will get if the party turns to social engineering is a slightly different New Labour Party.
Look at the University system. It used to be that you went to university if you were bright. Labour dumbed down A levels so far and made it financially viable for Universities to recruit. They don’t care who they get as long as the cash follows. So out we spit thousands of students each year barely able to structure a sentence. At the same time we employ Poles as plumbers because none of our offspring think making £100k a year as a plumber is sexy enough.
Social engineering is like messing with natural selection.
….and you wonder why people turn to UKIP.
David, I think you have misunderstood my point. At the height to the grammar school era, the Conservative Party did not believe in meritocracy any more than it does now. That explains your figures. There is no mistake on my part.
Dave Price.
Interesting you think that you are in a position to speak for the public!
What we are discussing here is why majority group (state school educated people and women) and, yes, some minority groups are under-represented and, in the case of state school educated people, dramatically under-represented in Parliament. You may think that is an acceptable situation. I do not.
You can continue with your quips about Blue Labour (which becomes more wearing every time somebody from the hard right uses it) and your absurd, outmoded forelock tugging (which would, of course, have left the country without the leadership of Lloyd-George and Thatcher amongst others).
The rest of us will continue to work hard to ensure that we elect a Conservative Government to make Britain a more prosperous, meritocratic and fairer place. And, yes, some of us will also continue to fight to ensure that the Party is representative of modern Britain and the society we are seeking to govern.
David, in what sense are John Maples and David Cameron’s inner clique representative of modern Britain….as opposed to 1890′s Britain? As for your self-righteoues brand of “fairness”, I think I can get the same from Harriet Harman i.e. the politics of discrimination and grievance dressed up as “social justice.”