I see Richard Bacon is trying to whip up some anger among his Twitter followers over the fact that most of the new cabinet are privately educated white men. That would be the same Richard Bacon – white male – who went to Worksop College (current fees £5,015 – £7,400 per term). His boss at Radio Five Live – Adrian Van Klaveren, white male – was also educated at an independent school (Bristol Grammar), as were the following white male Five Live presenters – Nicky Campbell (Edinburgh Academy), Peter Allen (Brentwood), Stephen Nolan (Royal Belfast Academical Institution), Chris Addison (Manchester Grammar), Andy Zaltzman (Tonbridge), John Inverdale (Clifton College), Simon Mayo (Solihull), and Mark Kermode (Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School). There’s probably more, but you get the idea.
And the BBC’s online article “Why has Eton produced so many prime ministers?” quotes Old Etonian Nick Fraser, author of the book “The Importance of Being Eton”. Strangely, there’s no mention of Mr Fraser’s day job – editor of the BBC’s Storyville documentary series.
Update. Just remembered another one – Radio Five Live’s racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght went to Eton.
So a government headed by, for the sake of example, a former head girl of Kesteven and Grantham Grammar would be more to the Beeb’s liking ?
I agree with your general point that the BBC is obsessed with the Eton aspect of people’s background. However, on the detail, Belfast Academical is part of the State-funded grammar school system in Northern Ireland and if he passed his 11-plus or equivalent qualifying exam, Stephen Nolan’s education there would have been paid for by his local education authority. I don’t know whether the same applies to Manchester grammar in England.
The BBC’s list of cabinet members only mentions their schooling if they are ‘old Etonians’ or went to Westmintster. Maybe they don’t realise that Rugby and Charterhouse are also public schools. As I blogged – http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/05/bbcs-obsession-with-eton-update.html – this morning: ‘…only two schools warrant a mention in the BBC’s descriptions: Eton mentioned every time and always with the phrase ‘old Etonian’ and Westminster school albeit not in Nick Clegg’s pen portrait.
The BBC do seem a little obsessed, oddly when I did a quick cost comparison, day fees at Eton are £9,617 per term, Westminster – £9,448 a term and Fettes (Tony Blair’s school) between £6,004 and £8,288 a term. All are therefore equivalently expensive, except to scholarship pupils such as Boris Johnson, but I believe entry to each requires passing an entrance exam.
And don’t forget David Dimblebore of Charterhouse and Oxford !
John Sopel on BBC News 24 right now interviewing some bloke called Will Straw (some brat of a Liebour politician)
“Your blog Left Foot Forward is a really good blog”
I look forward to Sopel saying that about Biased BBC or Order-Order.
I won’t hold my breath
Will Straw is Jack Straws son. In fact, here’s a link below where-by he’s supporting far left change agent: “Power 2010”, along with Billy Bragg and Polly Toynbee, demonstrating outside Liberal Democrat H.Q., that they shouldn’t be allowed to join forces with the Tories. The BBC of course lapped it up. The paradox of this is, a change of the voting system is precisely what the Lib Dems want, yet on this occasion it seems to have been lost in translation. I wonder why?
http://mrsrigbysays.blogspot.com/2010/05/straw-protests.html
And guess who’s on This Week tonight. Why, none other than Billy Bragg. Now there’s a surprise! =-O 😉
On what basis does the BBC consider we need to keep hearing from Billy Bragg?
Roland,
Strangely , about a year ago , I had a long email chat with Billy Bragg. To be fair to him, he did engage with me , but when he felt he had lost the argument, he told me to F**K off. I said the feeling is mutual !
Bacon making a total tit of himslef on Radio 5
Talking to the photographer that took the pics of the jock mong’s last hourse. Bacon keeps calling Brown “Gordon” (as opposed to Cameron)
Bacob also got excisted when HE suggested that right up to the end a deal with the Liebour party was on.
What a twat.
Bacon makes no attempt to be impartial
What about David Dimblebore ? Charterhouse and Oxford !
Those on the little list above: did any study science or maths i.e. the difficult subjects? They seem to know a lot about ‘global warming’.
Was on the beach today walking the dog when i got talking to one of these middle class white males public schooled old family money oh it was awful and he has a job that is publicly funded !!!!!! if it wasn’t for the fact he is a S.A.R crew member on Sea kings and risking his life everyday to save peoples lives, I would have been offended is that the kind of upper-class bacon want us to hate ?
Not forgetting: MARK THOMPSON, Director General of BBC, educated by Jesuits at the independent school, Stonyhurst College, Lancashire.
Stonyhurst is a Catholic school.
So he appoints a Muslim as head of BBC religious broadcasting.
In a Christian country.
Imagine what would happen to a head of broadcasting in Saudi or Pakistan if he appointed a Christian as head of his station’s religious broadcasting. Sacked in 2 days ? Dead within a week ?
It is a peculiar obsession the libleft has with private education.Some form of guilt complex I suppose after their daddy’s money giving them all the advantages.
The destruction of the grammar schools was carried out by these same privately educated idiots. Grammar schools were genuinely egalitarian. I went to one and came from a working class family. I have always believed the real reason for abolition was that the grammar schools had the public schools worried and in time would have finished them off. Pure snobbery disguised as social justice by an elite that feared for it’s position.
Does anybody really think Cameron and Clegg would ever bring the grammar schools back? Not in a million years. It would threaten their entrenched privileges. Us workers and proles get the comprehensives we deserve and should be grateful.
dave s
Me too
I managed to pass the 11 plus from an orphanage. Had to go out every day to the local grammar school. (Reigate GS)
Which is now a private school. Fee-paying.
I really worry about the education my UK grandkids are getting. Levelled down, incompetent teachers, spineless heads – and all made worse by a huge influx of foreigners
Blimey, John , we went to the same school !!!!
Isn’t it weird that roughly between the end of the war and the early seventies the country had a world class education system that didn’t appear to cost to much – an ideal situation in fact. Yet now this is never mentioned and indeed the Political class would rather we forgot the whole thing ! There are still a few Grammar schools out there producing excellent results but they appear invisible hardly ever mentioned on the media during discussions on schools.
My Mother attended a girls Grammar and helps run the old girls society , the members of that group include retired Professors , surgeons and so on. Not bad considering the schools catchment are mostly covered the working class area of a northern industrial town.
At last my PC is working!!! anyway 3 things,1, hurray Cameron is in, time to cut the BBC, 2, HURRAY, the beeboids looked like they were crying when Cameron moved in. ‘rejoice at that news’3, come on Dave kick out the left wing bias.