> In Britain, it is politically impossible to be prime minister and send your children to the equivalent of a private high school.
They are afforded some privacy, but all of Boris Johnson's "legitimate" children went to private schools as far as I can tell.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1141456/Boris-johnso... (sorry it's the sexpress, but this is fundamentally prurient)
https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/08/01/how-many-children-does... "unconfirmed" child
They win elections with media support, even when taking opposite stances day to day because the people that own and run those media companies... Went to school with them.
It's like a big club, and most of us ain't in it.
But if you are in it, you can be stupid, lazy, incompetent or even outright evil and still succeed, aka, fail upwards.
In the last few weeks the UK press has been running stories about supermarket shelves being empty and a general collapse of the domestic logistics system; while the articles split blame for this between Brexit and the self-isolation requirements created during the pandemic, in both cases the buck stops with the government.
There have been other substantial indicators of incompetence at least since Johnson took office.
Despite this, the government has generally been ahead in the polls.
They have been chosen because they are mostly either stupid, or loyal.
Patel is the only one there because she's a leadership threat (as shes the only one more obviously authoritarian and populist than Johnson)
> Johnson was hired by the Times through family connections, and fired for a front-page fabrication within months – on his very first front page story
> In November 2004, Boris Johnson was a shadow arts minister under Michael Howard, Conservative Vice-Chair, and editor of the Spectator – when it was reported in multiple tabloids that he had a years-long affair with one of the magazine’s columnists, which had resulted in two terminated pregnancies.
> Johnson publicly stated the allegations were untrue, calling them an “inverted pyramid of piffle”, and made the same assurances they were false to Michael Howard. When proof of the allegations was presented, Howard asked Johnson to resign, only for him to refuse and therefore be fired for dishonesty, for the second time in his career.
[sidebar: I'd forgotten that Michael Howard was editor of the Spectator. It's basically the official opinion journal of the Tory party]
Grant Shapps is another one with a significant career of failures; https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/16/revealed-gr... he ran a spammy business under a false name.
He's also got previous for cryptocurrency bribery https://www.ft.com/content/cd8f78f8-2850-3109-b577-269eedb1e... and a bullying scandal that involved the suicide of a young activist https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/grant-shapps-...
Gavin Williamson is a fairly minor offender; his only previous sacking was for leaks, and everybody leaks all the time https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48126974
More broadly, the UK has a whole category of unelected legislators - the House Of Lords - who are political appointees, sometimes with money changing hands, who are not accountable to the electorate and cannot be removed. Can't get less meritocratic than that while still being a democracy.
Whoever wrote this is being a little disingenuous. The pipeline from a handful of private schools to the upper echelons of power (via Oxbridge) in the UK is very well known. The fact that the press wouldn't let the PM away with sending their kids to Eton or Harrow doesn't really change this or make the country more meritocratic, it just means we all pretend they're just like the rest of us for a few years.
The whole topic deserves an entire book. Even then, the answer "who is the most meritocratic" won't receive a straight answer. The point that British culture does not allow the prime minister to send their children to fancy schools is a meaningful one to make, among many others.
It puts the UK closer to the Scandinavian/Northern European countries and the USA closer to less-than-democratic countries (MENA, Africa, Russia, China) on this particular axis.
To be clear - I don’t care where David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris et al send their kids to school. I care that such schools exist effectively to officially stamp you as a member of the upper class.
Edit: I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m annoyed with you or the original commenter! I have some strong feelings about this but I am aware that you didn’t create this system, that you are not standing up for it or trying to protect it. We’re just having a discussion and as you say it really deserves an entire book
I think this is the key bit and that's really well put.
"The American myth of meritocracy allows them to attribute their position to their brilliance and diligence, rather than to luck or a rigged system. At least posh people in England have the decency to feel guilty.In Britain, it is politically impossible to be prime minister and send your children to the equivalent of a private high school. Even Old Etonian David Cameron couldn’t do it. In the United States, the most liberal politician can pay for a lavish education in the private sector. Some of my most progressive friends send their children to $30,000-a-year high schools. The surprise is not that they do it. It is that they do it without so much as a murmur of moral disquiet."
The US has a sort of Andy Warhol style egalitarianism of "a coke is a coke and rich and poor alike drink it" going on but not much else. In the US progressive tech workers live in secluded suburbs, in London you see the poshest banker taking the tube without much concern. Exception in the US is maybe only NYC.