Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK

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The other point we should briefly reflect on is whether Johnson would be in power, and whether Brexitwould have happened without Oxford’s involvement – I personally believe they likely would still be in power today due to the networks formed at an earlier age. We need to think earlier down the educational journey when reflecting on social mobility; to expect universities to change the entire playing field places too much burden on institutions that already do so much good. HowTheTricolorGotItsStripes is a highly entertaining and likeable history of flags by Ukrainian ex-cabinet Minister Dmytro Dubilet and was originally published in Ukrainian 🇺🇦

Simon Kuper ( @KuperSimon) is an author and Financial Times journalist, born in Uganda and raised around the world. An Oxford graduate, he later attended Harvard as a Kennedy Scholar. He has written for the Observer, The Times and Guardian, and is also the author of The Happy Traitor and Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK.Rees-Mogg wasn’t ancestrally posh. Instead, he “adopted the persona of the institutions he attended”, diagnoses his contemporary Owen Matthews, who believes that this began as a defence mechanism for a thin, bookish child. Arriving at Oxford in 1988, he instantly became an unmissable sight, a rail-thin teenager promenading along Broad Street dressed like a Victorian vicar, in a double-breasted suit with an umbrella. In that time and place, it was about the most unconventional outfit imaginable. Moravcsik, Andrew (1 November 2022). "Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK". Foreign Affairs. No.November/December 2022. ISSN 0015-7120 . Retrieved 2 July 2023. Even during the 1980s when only 13% of people went to Higher Education, less than 0.5% of those graduated from an Oxbridge College, yet 13 of the 17 post war Prime Ministers graduated from Oxford University. Four of them educated at one very exclusive private school in Berkshire (you know the one) Inbred self-confidence is, of course, what the likes of Johnson, Rees-Mogg (“the only undergraduate who went around in a double-breasted suit”), Rishi Sunak (Winchester) and David Cameron (whose “accent, confidence, height and pink rude health always screamed Eton”) have in spades. As do less recognisable but very influential players, like ardent Brexiteer Daniel (now Baron) Hannan, co-founder of the Vote Leave campaign. They’re gifted it by fairy godmothers, then have it nurtured at Eton/ Winchester/Charterhouse/Shrewsbury/wherever and honed at Oxford. A penetrating analysis of the connections that enabled an incestuous university network to dominate Westminster and give birth to Brexit ... perceptive and full of surprises'

Union politicians – instantly recognisable because they were the only students who wore suits – were forever traipsing around the colleges tapping up ordinary students with the phrase, “May I count on your vote?” Typically, though, only a few hundred people, many of them union insiders, bothered to cast theirs. In this second campaign, Johnson also worked his charm beyond his base. Gove, a fresher in 1985, told Johnson’s biographer Andrew Gimson: “The first time I saw him was in the union bar … He seemed like a kindly, Oxford character, but he was really there like a great basking shark waiting for freshers to swim towards him.” Gove, who campaigned for him, admits: “I was Boris’s stooge.” And then, using almost the same phrase as Toby Young: “I became a votary of the Boris cult.” To celebrate the publication of #DisobedientBodies – the new manifesto on beauty from Emma Dabiri, the bestselling author of #WhatWhitePeopleCanDoNext – we’re running a giveaway with UK indie nail polish brand Télle Moi. Kuper, Simon (16 June 2022). "Western Europe's cynicism about Ukrainian suffering". Financial Times . Retrieved 2 July 2023. He is scathing of those habits of tutorial teaching at the university, which too frequently rewarded bluffing and charm over industry and doubt. Still, this is not, he insists, “a personal revenge on Oxford”. It’s rather “an attempt to write a group portrait of a set of Tory Brexiteers… who took an ancient route through Oxford to power”.I wanted to hate Kuper for how much he placed Oxford on a pedestal. Yet I understand why he does and rather begrudgingly, I fear I agree. This isn’t to say that the majority of students are linked to the corrupt assembly line that our country is built on - if anything, the book highlights how even large populations of the students are just as ‘outside’ as the rest of us peasants. Kuper, Simon (18 September 2019). "How Oxford University shaped Brexit — and Britain's next prime minister". Financial Times . Retrieved 1 July 2023. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month.