Guess what proportion of MPs privately educated in each party. Go on, guess!

[nearlytoolate]

And no cheating if you have read it in the papers already!

I would like to know how many MPs use private education for their own children.

It wouldn't be hypocrisy anyway, children generally go to school where their parents choose.

there are some excellent state schools. I am a fan of the 11+ and state grammar schools that allowed people like me from working and middle class families to get educations equally as good as any of the toffs can get. Thatcher was a grammar school girl and she ran rings around all the toffs from Eton, Westminster and Harrow combined. We've got millions of very clever children from poor families. Let's give them a chance.

good question Jacaqueen, and it is the cabinet that is particularly revealing.

i would also like to know if any of the parties' spinners are not privately educated

Alastair Campbell went to a comprehensive. Don't know who the other spinners are.

"I would like to know how many MPs use private education for their own children."

Or use a faith school at the other side of London for their little darlings.

I don't think you have to go to a private school to be well educated. I think Thatcher was just as well educated as Old Harrovians like Portillo and Diane Abbott. I think that there is an issue of social mobility here. I rarely read the Guardian, I prefer the truth, but when I did, the regular readers in the comments section were demanding to see what they called "the list". Apparently, they want to see a list of the universities that the Guardian columnists went to. One reader spelt out the list and there were hardly any journalists who did not go to Oxbridge. Undoubtedly you can get a great eduation at Oxbridge, but it is not the only place in the land that offers a great education. Access to power and influence from other avenues is an indicator of the amount of social mobility that there really is.

I knew Labour cant be very well educated, look at the mess they've put this country in.
And Tories have to be the most well educated because they have so much money. Why people attack them for being clever I dont know, surely that helps us? Or are people just jealous...?

"I rarely read the Guardian, I prefer the truth"

So what do you read then?

I think Labour are well educated. I don't support them, but Mandelson on his own is cleverer than the entire Conservative front bench. As far as I know, Mandelson also went to a grammar school.

slug, if you want the truth, you can't go far wrong with the Daily Mail

None of them really tell the whole truth. They only show aspects of the truth, some papers show more truth than others. The Mail is universally derided, but it often shows glimpses of the truth that the others avoid.

I would like to know - of the state educated MP's - who comes from normal working / lower middle class backgrounds (i.e excluding those with Marxist intellectual or trade union leader parents).

Any ideas? [not a quiz - just interested].

How insulting fyimate that you are assuming that state educated equates to being poorly educated and less clever. Being clever and throwing money at an education are in no way the same thing, it is not as if they are comparing school grades or university achievements. I think what I object to (not MPs specifically, just in general tone) is the idea of superiority, that you are giving a perfect example of. Like someone once said about George Bush: "was born on third base but thinks he hit a triple." That's what people are attacked for, not going to Eton themselves, but acting as if someone is living hand to mouth because they didn't choose to go to Eton.

On another note, I think it is worth taking into account how many of the Labour MPs are Scottish and therefore less likely to have gone private, especially outside the major cities.

oh Diane and Portillo often imply that they both went to the same school on Andrew Neil's Politics Show. Just looked her up, apparently she went to Harrow County Grammar School for Girls, so you are right it is not the same Harrow that Portillo went to.

good question jackstarbright. I always think it is great that John Major, who was no toff at all, left school at 16 and ended up as our Prime Minister. It shows that there are cases where the Tories and our country do not deny power to people of talent, whatever their background.

I really don;t get this fascination with what school they all went to. It's not like they had any choice is it?

Isn't it far more disturbing that only 22% of MPs are women? And that's a record high?

Before you get too hung up on the figures remember that many of these MPs were educated in the 1980s when one could go to private school for free under the assisted places scheme.

I went to private school and my parents paid a fraction of the fees.

Also how many of the state educated MPs went to grammar schools? There is not a huge difference between grammar schools and the cathedral city type private schools.

Anyway where they were all educated is the least of my concerns. It is what they are planning to do to improve state education that I am concerned about. If lots of them have been to good schools I'd hope that would focus their minds on making all schools as good as the ones they went to.

Claig, Michael Portillo and Diane Abbott did go to the same school. Portillo did not go to Harrow Public School.

I don't think there is any direct correlation to private school education and how clever you are.

I think a lot of the private schools excel in teaching their students to be able to mask their innate lack of talent.

Cheltenham College for instance is full of thick yocks who are coached in the extreme to pass the most basic of results. What they really get out of it is a full contact list of likeminded hurrahs and a fast pass to onbe of the Oxbridge reject unis.

Og course there are lots of private schools which are stringent academically (Cheltenham Ladies for instance) but to be honest you would get just as much an education at a good state grammar as you would there. But of course it wouldn't be as exalted socially.

Not everyone has the option of state grammars though as they are only left in a handful of counties.

oh thanks MissAnneElk, it's getting very confusing with the number of schools calling themselves Harrow something or other. I think I will apply to set up a Free School under the Tory's new scheme with the name Harrow in it. That should be a moneyspinner.