To be pleased most of the cabinet are Oxbridge graduates?

[sagerosemaryandthyme]

That's it really. Surely we want the brightest and best in the cabinet.

Quite, Takver.

I never had the joy of actually speaking to him, I was a first year and he was a lofty third year!

Me too [emphasizes youth] but heard him and saw him at the Union.

no-one is saying that Oxbridge graduates don't have an idea of life outside of their circle of life.........however a career politicain is unlikely to have had the same sort of experience as a graduate who went out and lived a "normal" life with all it's ups and downs.

Most of them are from very privileged backgrounds.

I went to Cambridge. I'm of the belief that it is not a marker of higher intelligence/skill. I'm of average intelligence. I got in because I was trained for the interviews and I have a good memory for facts and figures. Nothing more.

Cameron and Clegg and alot of the Cabinet are part of the old boys network, Eton/Westminster/private school etc. They were trained for and expected to go to Oxbridge and forge 'important' careers.

I doubt they learnt anything at Oxbridge that actually proved useful, except maybe the names and contact details of other upper class lads from establishment families.

Hopefully they'll do a good job, but if they do, I wouldn't be inclined to think it'll have much to do with their university.

So...I think YABU. Sorry.

I am not sure, I was too busy wearing very short skirts and drinking pints!

Well I didn't go to Oxbridge.

I'd be a rubbish cabinet member, I just know it.

at Jacob Rees-Mogg anti-fan club.

Staranise was your DH in the same college? I think JR-M must have been in the year below me and not in the same college, so my awareness of him was slight, but apart from being generally obnoxious, he wore a suit - all the time. FGS. I too was busy wearing rowing kit short skirts and drinking pints.

No, I think J R-M was at Trinity (surprisingly down-to-earth for a R-M no?!), DH was at Corpus and never went anywhere near the Union so don't know how he even came across J R-M - it seems his notoriety spread far and wide.

I was there 93-96 and it was James Archer (guess who his father is?) who was the notorious one - though some of the Labour Cabinet's children were also remarkable for their arrogance, snobbery and excessive wealth.

One of my tutors commented on the length of my skirt and how it must "be a Northern thing..."

I was at the Union one night and a very plummy voice said "That's a long skirt"...am also Northern (well Scottish).

staranise - my parents were contempoaries(same subject) of his (James A's) "fragrant" mother - and my parents loathe both her and Jeffrey with a passion (he, of course, was actually doign sport science at the Poly, for all that he talks about his "time at Oxford" ).

TBH, my skirts were obscenely short and I was cold most of the time.

I think that's quite depressing actually. Although, I suppose it's reassuring for the tiny minority who can coast through life on their old school ties etc.

And David Cameron talks about getting rid of the 'sense of entitlement'.

That'd be the entitlement to a few pennies in your hour of need. That entitlement. Not the Oxbridge sense of entitlement though.

I never did subscribe to short skirts and no tights - I never mastered the art of pretending not to be cold.

Magaly - what is the "Oxbridge sense of entitlement"? I am intruiged and I think I must have missed that lecture...

I got my doctorate from and then was a lecturer at Oxford pre-DS.

Can't speak for the other place, although I have friends and a grandmother who went there.

Oxford students are bright. Some truly brilliant, some are bright as the consequence of really hard work. They all work hard while they are at Oxford.

In general (with a couple of exceptions) Oxford Colleges couldn't care less who your parents are, and are actually really keen to take students from State schools.

BUT they have a couple of big problems:

It can be hard to tell the difference in interview between someone who's, frankly, not up to getting in, and someone who has amazing potential but has been at a mediocre school, without necessarily a lot of encouragement at home and who is completely intimidated by Oxford surroundings. It's a real interview skill to be able to pick those people out.

Also, there are issues with bright students from certain areas/schools never even considering applying to Oxford, because it's just not part of their world at all. Doesn't mean they're not as bright or brighter than the students who apply.

As for it being relevant or important that most of the cabinet came from Oxbridge. Pah. A lot of people who are academically gifted are pretty unworldly. That's why they call it the 'ivory tower'. Yes, they are likely to be capable of hard work and of focusing pretty intensely on tasks at hand, but their organization and social awareness can sometimes be (ahem) pretty average.

Stupid example: only one person in my lab of 7 had a TV at home. Lots had no idea what was going on outside their plants/fish/insects.

Don't think it matters either way tbh. I don't think that a person's educational history should be held up as proof that they are either a) elitist and privileged or b) a less able person.

I haven't been to a top uni myself, but I know people who have - these were very ordinary, hard working people from non-posh backgrounds who happened to be exceptionally bright.

So I don't accept that they are all braying toffs. Many/most of them are more like me than like DC, Boris etc.

Squiggle, Within politics I mean. 2 people from my own school went to Cambridge and they were both ordinary (ish) and now work very hard. I don't mean that every person who went to Oxford or Cambridge just sits back and waits for the job offers and telephone number salaries to fall into their lap.

I meant within politics. How can it be, that most of the cabinet went to Oxbridge!? There's something not right there.

So perhaps I could conclude the following,

if I was pleased that so many of the cabinet are Oxbridge graduates because they are the 'social elite' I would be being unreasonable - I agree, I would!

If I thought that Oxford and Cambridge were the only universities capable of producing people fit to run the country and that the 'brightest and best' couldn't be drawn from any other academic backgrounds I would be being unreasonable - I agree, I would!

The reason I continue to be pleased that there are so many Oxbridge graduates in our cabinet is because this represents a measure of intelligence and drive. We really need this and I'm more confident knowing that there are brains in the cabinet, whatever the politics, whatever the university - I suppose the media are only interested in giving us information that will illicit a response, it's a shame the same fuss hasn't been made about the qualifications of the other cabinet members.

Beyond this, I think it's a very sad fact that people continue to feel so threatened by academic elitism because they still, after years of a Labour government, feel that it is not open to all sections of society. This is something that desperately needs changing and I hope, with the greatest of passions, that it does.

Did you go to Oxbridge!? You missed spelling class too?

I think most people here are missing the point.

To have a place in Cabinet a person must have special skills that the vast majority of the rest of the populace do not possess.

Their university (if they went to one, that is) is irrelevant by the time they've got to cabinet.

It is like asking two Formula One drivers if they passed their driving test first time or second (or even third)and then trying to judge their merit as F1 drivers on it- it would be ludicrous and totally irrelevant.
That is, by the time they've reached the standard to become F1 drivers such things cease to matter.

Well by the time a politician reaches the skill to become a Cabinet minister such things as which university they went to are largely irrelevant.

But of course, this being Mumsnet, the OP- clearly a troll- knows that the OP is going to stimulate the g-spot of the typical MN-er.

YABU - if you had been to Oxford and seen the people who get in there you would realise it is somewhere you buy into through status, private education, privilege or family. There are very few who come from ordinary state comprehensives and the environment there makes them uncomfortable and excluded on the whole. There is a misconception about Oxbridge being a mecca for intellectuals and academia, in my opinion you can get this out of Oxford if you try and there is a lot of hard work when you are there and to get you there but Privilege and status are more important.

I think you need a reflection of the people in cabinet. Having gone to Oxbridge will likely mean you will only ever have had a theoretical idea of most of the issues you are legislating for. How does george osborne or iain duncan smith know what it is like to be a single mother on benefits? Who are they to tell you you are lazy or to understand anything about what it is like - this life is so far removed from any experience they have had.