The lack of social mobility will be a familiar refrain during the general election campaign. The seven per cent of children who are privately educated exert an inordinate dominance over British life, as The New Statesman has frequently highlighted: they provide 70 per cent of high court judges, a majority of FTSE100 chief executives and journalists and over 40 per cent of students at Oxford and Cambridge.
The implication seems clear: Britain is becoming a society ever more rigged in favour of those born into family wealth and connections, especially in an age of annual university tuition fees of £9,000. If it is a depressing picture, it should not be mistaken for the complete one. University education has never been more accessible.
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