‘Class war’
The Tab spoke to Ian Bone earlier today. The experienced anarchist said ‘our main concern is the class based nature of an education at Eto- ah, sorry, Cambridge.’
Calling for a ‘national mobilisation of both animal rights and anarchist class war’, he said that ‘the best thing you could do for social inequality in this country is burn down Cambridge University.‘
He dismissed outreach schemes as ‘a load of cosmetic old bollocks‘ and described the university as a way for ‘the gene pool of the upper classes… to nourish itself amongst a very small group of people.’
‘Comrade Ravochol’
He has renamed Mr ASBO ‘Comrade Ravochol’, after the French anachist of the same name.
On his blog, he outlined his support for the vicious swan: “For us the swan is heroic and has shown exemplary class consciousness by attacking Cambridge University rowers” he declared. He admitted ‘there were some other casualties” as well.
He viewed the removal of the swan as an example the university’s arrogance: ‘They think they can ride roughshod of people so they think they can ride roughshod over nature.’
‘They think they own the river and they probably do. The Conservators of The Cam are all in the pocket of Cambridge university.’
The Conservators said they had ‘No comment.’
Ian Bone 
One of the biggest wankers I have ever heard of. Just because we’re going to accomplish something with our lives, unlike you. Wasting the past 20 years, bet your family are proud…
Accomplish what? Greasing your palms with the fruits of your own privelage? Getting your snouts into the elite trough? Then shitting on the rest of us? You think you’re the cream of ‘civilisation’, when in reality you’re just ruthless parasites and maggots.
Scum. Your days are numbered- your political economy is eating itself.
You are right, Cambridge doesn’t teach a single subject which could contribute to human beings across the world. No science, no medicine. I really hate the fact that Cambridge students are pushing their intellectual boundaries, understanding more of the world is so elitist. Us proles, couldn’t possibly be given the chance to explore the world more, we would need free schooling and books, and government funded University. Damn the toffs.
The only way students get a place at Cambridge is by getting good grades.
You’re damaging the cause by branding so many people who aren’t toffs as toffs. Try going after the real privileged upper class – how about the House of Lords for a start?
Please learn to spell.
JOG ON YOU TOFF WANKER, I’M GONNA ROB YOUR DADDIES BENTLEY
Sir, that would be “Daddy’s” (you’re attempting to make it possessive rather than plural). Unless you were implying that he has two fathers who own Bentleys, in which case the possessive plural is “Daddies’ “.
A well balanced account on the whole, a modicum of journalistic ability and pithily and deferently biased…BBC breakfast sofa beckons for young Bates
‘…and now, on her 84th birthday, over to Carol for the weather’. Cunt.
To attack an institute of educational excellence, which counts more than 50% of its students from state schools, is surely an agenda so twisted and misconceived there cannot be more than a handful of people so deluded as to agree. One is left with the sour taste that such a policy is simply for the sake of attention and headlines.
Are you serious?
“50% from state schools”. Maybe so, but that leaves approximately half your alumni to be overprivelaged from birth and about, let me see, er…half being class traitors.
All of this adds up to a good reason for all out revolutionary violence.
Oh sorry, I hadn’t realised I was a class traitor for training to be a doctor at Cambridge. There was silly little me thinking I wanted to cure sick people when actually my intentions were to burn my working class roots and piss on poor people.
You all have no clue at all. About 58% of students who get grades good enough to get into Cambridge are from state schools. About 54% of the intake at Cambridge is from state schools. Even then many of those from private schools were only there on scholarship. So why not check your facts before you spout crap, Quite a few state school students who are good enough are put off applying by bullshit artists like yourself who aren’t happy with what you have in life and decide to shit on those who are trying hard for themselves.
No one commenting here could have met many people who go to Cambridge. Maybe if you went in with an open mind then you might realise what it’s really like.
You think after all that education he could spell anarchist…
You people are utterly hilarious. The University of Cambridge’s admissions system it entirely meritocratic; it is class blind. I am a student from a working class family who worked bloody hard at his state comp and earned a place here based on the grades I achieved and my desire to learn. I now study side by side with people from private, state grammar and state comp schools; I’m here because I worked hard, they’re here because they worked hard and we’re united in a desire to learn and further ourselves intellectually. Take a step down off of your soap box and think for one minute about what you’re actually spouting.
That is truly the voice of reason.
I am another example. My parents were refugees and had to work VERY hard to educate us. My grandfather had to sell his farm, his sole source of income, to send my dad to university. I was inspired by their determination, so I worked really hard to do the best that I can do. Now at Cambridge, I run charities and give back to the community all the time. In fact, I’ve decided to spend my summer working on a project to bring energy to homes in poor areas in the Middle East. You have no right to make such claims. I haven’t met one person who is here with the sole aim of maintaining their ‘social class’ or backing elitism. In fact, everyone I know aims to benefit the wider community after graduation and bring whatever good they can to the world. Don’t you dare make such generalisations and spread such uncalled for hate. I urge you to really get to know the people who attend Cambridge before making claims plucked out of the air.
Oh here we go, all the fucking sob stories and bleeding heart bollocks. It seems whenever someone criticises these institutions suddenly everyone who went to Eton/Cambridge/Oxford (etc.) supposedly came from a working class background with hard working parents, gives to charity, regularly saves the lives of drowning children etc.
As for the article, I thought these people were supposed to be fucking smart and yet this is the best they can come up with?
@ Voice of reason: I was once sacked by Sidney Sussex College if that helps?
@ James Gold: Your statistics prove that there is no link between Cambridge University and the English Ruling Class. Very interesting. Cunt.
Fucking hell, we are hearing some shite on here! Medical students at Cambridge saying they’re motivated by wanting to “cure” the sick. Who are you trying to kid? What is it, at least 40K per year when you start, the last I heard. You’re not seeking to get on a career ladder, then? You don’t want to become part of some profession that’s wholly a tool of the big pharmaceutical companies, including if you stay in the academic world where medical ‘research’ articles are all paid for by the said interests? Oh no. Silly me.
And “I haven’t met one person who is here with the sole aim of maintaining their ‘social class’ or backing elitism.” Oh for fuck’s sake! Talk about taking the biscuit. So the banks and other big financial companies don’t recruit any Cambridge graduates, then? Never seen them at any recruitment fairs, no? Nor the Foreign Office, etc. etc. etc. Maybe you should get out of your student room some more.
And as for the idea that Cambridge University “gives” poorer students 3K per year. Well yes. You mean the Cambridge Bursary Scheme and the Isaac Newton Trust. Funded by military contractor BOEING, banker scum CITI, big-time supporter of Zionist war crimes CATERPILLAR, international law firm CLIFFORD CHANCE (hello money laundering), scientific equipment manufacturer THERMO SCIENTIFIC (wouldn’t want the Cavendish laboratory etc., or the other big-money scientific operations at the West Cambridge site, buying their equipment from elsewhere, right?), and of course one of the biggest corporate land thieves in the country, step forward, TRINITY COLLEGE.
They’re all doing it to help the disadvantaged out of the kindness of their hearts, are they? They aren’t doing it for reasons of public relations, propaganda, and kickbacks for contracts, or anything like that? And the queen loves us all too, right?
And as for rowing clubs not being elitist! Tell the fucking truth! Do you think you can get away with saying absolutely anything?
So to those Cambridge bods who are coming on here spouting what they’ve heard (so many % from state schools, great access policy, need to encourage more applications from Asboland, etc. etc. etc.), have a think before you post, and ask yourselves why people with money put it where they do.
Oh and click here if you want to check my sources for any of the above.
Get acquainted with the idea that those of us who want to stick it to the toffs and the elite aren’t unacquainted with the world of knowing stuff and finding stuff out.
And why don’t some of you find something new out, even? Help educate us, why don’t you. Tell us what % of fellows at Trinity College went to private schools. What do you mean, you don’t know? Have a guess! Same percentage as in the general population, is it? And don’t tell us one of them is, and you saw him eating peas off his knife last week. We want to know a rough estimate of the percentage.
Last time I went to Cambridge the crime rate went up by 88% with rich toffs robbed, carjackings all over the county, this time I intend to increase that percentage, you fucking rich boy scum, your rowers will be turned over, I’ll rob the clothes off your fuckin toff back……we’re fuckin coming and all hell comes with us, especially most of last years rioters who’ve been given early release.
Sutton Trust: Oxbridge admissions by individual schools
– 100 elite schools – making up under 3% of 3,700 schools with sixth forms and sixth form colleges in the UK – accounted for a third of admissions to Oxbridge during the last five years.
– At the 30 schools with the highest admissions rates to Oxbridge, one quarter of university entrants from the schools went to Cambridge and Oxford universities during the five years.
– The schools with the highest admissions rates are highly socially selective. The 30 schools are composed of 29 independent schools and one grammar.
– The 100 schools with the highest admission rates to Oxbridge are composed of 78 independent schools, 21 grammar schools, and
one comprehensive.
– Overall, the top 200 schools and colleges made up 48% of admissions to Oxbridge during the five years, with 10 per cent of their university entrants going to the two universities. The other 3,500 schools and colleges accounted for the remaining 52% of admissions, with one per cent
of their university entrants going to Oxbridge during the period.
Click to access UniversityAdmissions.pdf
Tsk tsk, I’ve never seen such fallacious reasoning, and from our very finest young ladies and gentlemen too!
Upon perusing these outbursts of irk from attendees of our, nay, the world’s most esteemed educational establishment, I conclude that the majority of them seem to believe that hard work equates to virtue, therefore if they are hard working they must be virtuous people.
This seems a very unsafe premise to me.
A brief consideration of the doings and deeds of a variety of nefarious, notorious and ne’erdoingwells should be enough to convince even the most stubbornly self loving undergraduate that hard work often accompanies deeds of great malevolence, and also often underpins the most obnoxious of social structures.
Did not General Pinochet put in all the hours god sent him to achieve his ambitions?
Did not Himmler work until his eyes where blurred, his fingers sore, when concocting history’s most notorious crimes?
Did not the Oxbridge alumni Tony Blair work exceedingly hard, and capitalise on his formidable intellectual talents in order to carry out his criminal war endeavours more effectively?
I’m sure there are many grateful for the talent and application of such people, but on the other hand, their talent and application left a trail of blood and suffering through the history books.
In short, we don’t care how hard you work, you fucks.
No-one wants to equate hard work with virtue, for the reasons you correctly outline. Cambridge equates hard work and talent with academic merit, for an academic context. Private school pupils get in because their school orientate their sixth-forms to acheiving good university results, and have more resources to put into preparing students for interviews. No tutor would ever select a student based on some subjective construction of class. Most Cambridge dons did not go to Cambridge. It is utterly illogical to attack two (Oxbridge) institutions on the basis of their history of selecting almost entirely from richer people. Though it may back up your ideology to claim Cambridge is still like that, they could not be doing much more to attract state school pupils. The problem lies in underfunding of education in the state sector.
If you base your view around ‘a trail of blood and suffering through the history books’, I expect you could find some kind of issue with literally anything.
Why undermine a social structure when you could participate constructively and improve it?
And yes, I went to private school and am at Cambridge. I hate conservative politics, but seeing supposed socialists spout uninformed, illiterate, illogical bollocks does make me doubt…
“Private school pupils get in because their school orientate their sixth-forms to acheiving good university results, and have more resources to put into preparing students for interviews. […] The problem lies in underfunding of education in the state sector.”
I agree.
But you conveniently forgot to mention that the same social class which is over-represented at Oxbridge is actually responsible for that underfunding of state education, via accumulation of wealth, tax-dodging, and its influence on policy-making, thanks to being over-represented in positions of political power too.
When confronting any part of a web of mutually reinforcing privilege and power, it’s always easy for someone like you to argue: “Don’t target THIS part of the system, can’t you see the problem’s THAT bit over there”. Whereupon the same argument is made when the other target is confronted.
Sorry to burst your bubble but it’s time for YOUR bit of the problem to take some responsibility.
Do you know what “logic” means? “No tutor would ever select a student based on some subjective construction of class.” No, right, how about their objective knowledge of class?
Are you even aware of just how patrician the British system is of interviewing applicants and then deciding whether or not to “give” them an “offer”? In many other countries, anyone who’s met the published requirements for starting a course can just tell the university to expect them at the start of the academic year, and the state pays. Did you know that? Why do they need to fucking interview people? And they disregard what schools they attend, do they? Well why the fuck do they want to know beforehand? And they disregard what accents they hear, do they? Well why the fuck do they insist on interviews?
Oh yeah, they want to make sure they’re being fair to all comers, especially those from the servant classes, and they want to spot “potential”. Have I got the bullshit right?
No-one is denying that the ruling class does recruit a small number of individuals from the lower orders.
“In many other countries, anyone who’s met the published requirements for starting a course can just tell the university to expect them at the start of the academic year”
Well in my year for my course at my college there were 21 applicants per place, at least 18 of which had or were expected to get the advertised requisite A*AA (the offers actually came out at A*A*A, though I’d be immensely surprised if most of the other applicants didn’t go on to achieve that). If not for interview how on earth is the university going to choose the best people? Or should we just accept any Tom, Dick or Harry who turns up with the correct grade? (N.B. The latter would be ridiculously in favour of private school pupils as it is a simple fact that they get better grades than me and my state school peers). Or should they just have made offers to those from a working class background? I for one know that I couldn’t look my fellow students in the eye knowing that I was here as a token to make up numbers whereas they were here because they are the academic cream of the crop.
What mindless drivel. Having identified this ‘problem’, I would ask Mr Bone what he actually hopes to achieve. Working class people are class traitors for attending places of quality learning? ‘Toffs’, privileged from birth, have no right to attend? It seems Mr Bone feels higher education, as a natural form of division, should simply not be permitted.
He proclaims the admissions policy to be discriminatory but to decry the product of substandard schooling lower down in our education system appears both misguided and ignorant. The Cambridge admissions policy is meritocratic and whilst it is sad to admit that state schooling fails many pupils, that is the reality. For Cambridge to admit pupils who are unable to cope with the academic rigour demanded would be both cruel and counter-productive. I am far from saying that these individuals, had they received adequate schooling in their earlier education, would not have been capable of attending. But the Cambridge admissions service must confront the reality with which it is presented.
I attended a good state comprehensive (and yes, many of the people who are commenting from Cambridge on here attended state schools; having survived the allegedly discriminatory admission, I feel a particular need to defend the University) but my experience is unfortunately not the norm. I would defend the entitlement of those who would prefer to assure the standard of their child’s education and so send them to a private school. Having discussed this issue at length with such students, the consensus was that if the state system were to offer equivalently (or even near equivalently) good education, then who would pay the high level of fees when they could receive it for free elsewhere?
Stop making unfounded allegations of attempts to maintain elitism. By all means discuss the reform required in the state school sector but to blame those failings on institutions such as Cambridge is deluded.
Max, 1st year lawyer.
Hi Max – You are putting forward a very sound argument for abolition of fee-paying schools and the financing of all education under a well funded state system. Bravo to that.
Hi Jabez. The argument I present is precisely the opposite. There should simply be no need to abolish fee-paying schools. It is my view that, given the fundamental importance of education, someone who is able to guarantee the quality of their child’s education is entitled to do so. However, with a greater quality of state schooling, fee-paying schools price themselves out of the market; why pay £30k a year when you could receive almost as good an education free from the state? Until the state sector is improved to such a standard, it would be wholly wrongful to force individuals to rely on a substandard state education system when they currently choose to independently pay for their own schooling. Therefore, whilst we should undoubtedly aspire to a vastly improved state system, the abolition of fee-paying schools proves both unnecessary and unjust.
Thanks Max – The problem with your ‘argument’ is that only the wealthy are able to take ‘advantage’ of the fee paying education on offer. In fact referring to this system as public is incorrect – it may be public education up to a point, but should really be referred to as private education as per the Yank description. The aim for me and many people is for the private fee paying education to be replaced by a totally financed state system. If you and others feel that those teaching private ‘excellence’ is the answer, then let us pay the academic staff the same salary, but from the state coffers.. Regrettably I don’t think it will happen in the foreseeable future.
higher education, as a natural form of division
The Cambridge admissions service
Max, you’re trying to support what you don’t know much about, except that you know you’ve got to support it. You said you’re a budding lawyer, right?
Higher education is not a natural form of division, and admission at Cambridge is done by colleges, not the University.
B, well I’d have to disagree. Degree of education does create some form of division; the ‘higher’ positions in society are dependent on further education. What I mean by this is that in studying Law or medicine, you gain access to jobs and influence that otherwise you could not, without that level of further education. I don’t think you could disagree?
And course I know admission is done by individual colleges – I was accepted by one (!) – but I don’t think it inappropriate to refer to ‘Cambridge admission service’, as indeed the University does, to refer to the system as a whole.
Can I ask what point you’re trying to make as, if there was one intended in what you wrote, it sadly escaped me?
Well Max, 1st year lawyer.
The state does offer an equivalently good education. There’s far more straight A students in total coming out of the state sector than the private sector. It’s just that they don’t get near Cambridge. The private school kids do because they’re paying for access.
Meritocracy my arse.
Again, I would have to disagree. For the top 10 comprehensive schools, they achieved A level grades of A*, A, B at a rate with a range of 87%-76% in 2011. In contrast, the top 10 independent schools all managed rates above 97%. After the top 10, the comprehensive schools’ rate continues to decrease quite rapidly, whereas the private schools’ remains high. It simply cannot be of surprise that those independent schools feature proportionally more highly in the Cambridge intake. Whilst I concede that there are some equivalently good comprehensives (I went to one), the average standard of education is at a much lower level than that of private schools.
My view would be to reintroduce grammar schooling more widely as they gave a fairer access to education than our current system. The problem of opportunity lies at a much earlier stage of education; Cambridge can only be interested in maintaining its academic quality and to blame it for the imbalanced distribution of that academic quality is to blame the symptom, not the cause.
@student
I’m not comparing the overall performance of the private schools with comprehensives. Of course private schools perform better.
I’m pointing out that each year in total more state school pupils get straight As than private school pupils.
So why isn’t this reflected at Oxbridge? You seem to infer it’s not about getting straight As, which is a damn sight harder to do at Shithouse Comp than Eton, but about attending a high-performing institution.
@thebristolblogger I don’t know if this will follow your last comment but it won’t let me click upon that one…
The reason for that is quite simple. Not enough of them apply!! Forgive me as I cannot find more recent data but the most recent I could find was from 2009 and outlines the problem quite clearly.
Click to access table1_2.pdf
The number of independent school applicants was MORE than the number of comprehensive students so of course there are going to be more acceptances. Admittedly the acceptance rate is slightly higher but this would be taken into account by better average grades, better preparation for interview and perhaps a lesser likelihood of missing grades once an offer has been given (independant school pupil constituted 29% of applications and 38% of acceptances).
The question we should be asking is how to encourage more of these students to apply. Cambridge offers numerous access schemes which have seen slowly increasing proportions in recent years. Again, one of the failings of the state sector is a general lack of support for those looking to go to such institutions; state schools should be providing practice interviews, mock entrance examinations and assistance with the personal statement, but all too many do not. The protests of Mr Bone do nothing to support this cause; proclaiming Cambridge to be elitist and discriminatory in its application procedure is likely just to further deter students that should be applying from applying.
Ah yes. It’s Ian Bone that makes Cambridge elitist. Silly me for thinking it’s the fault of the place itself.
With all these down at heel ex-tramps and sixth generation charity working self made refugees populating oxbridge it’s a wonder there’s any room left there for the braying entitled toff class that inhabit our power systems, jeee-sus.
My heart bleeds.
Mr Bone is being, as usual, deliberately provocative although who is provoking here is not clear. He is a graduate of an elitest insitution himself (UCW -like me) but has obvious rejected the concept of hierachy and the idea of becoming another characterless face in the corporate brick wall. He’s has not been a wasted life (it’s not over yet!), as some of the above commentators have suggested, as he has had the power of mind and action to speak out against a sick society. Perhaps he stands in the great nonconformist tradition of this country which has done so much to innovate and drive our society forward against the conservatism of the elite and its institutions. So much more in any case than the bankers and the dons of the posh colleges.
So chin up Mr Bone, no publicity is bad publicity in your case!
If there are people of working class origin, who enter these places intending to use the knowledge for the benefit of their class, then fair enough. Outside of that, however, your origins are irrelevant. The elite institution exists today to train the elite of tomorrow. Your class origins are neither here nor there, once you leave the working class behind, once you imbibe the value of the place, your public school educated cronies, then you have left the working class. This is where your “I’ve worked hard to get here” rhetoric is pure ideology. Who doesn’t work hard? You’re just tokens of a desperate attempt to appear meritocratic. A methodological tool: don’t look at what individuals say or feel about their experience, look at the institutional functions. Elite universities exist to train the elite. This is how the ruling class duplicates and refreshes itself. At least face the facts.
Yes, a lot of politicians went to elite universities but then so did the doctors, the engineers, the heads of lots of important NGOs. There are jobs in this world which are necessary (unless you’re fans of living in caves and dying before you reach 30) and necessarily require the most academically able minds to perform. Cambridge university and the other supposedly elite educational instutions provide people to fill these roles by educating the most academically able in our society. These institutions function as they must to provide society with people who have the suitable skills to perform certain jobs. By all means criticise Cambridge but you must recognise, in doing that, you ought also to be shunning healthcare, town planning, bridges, boats, cars, computers and all manner of other things which require the existence of a group of very academically able people to function
Er.. That’s shite.
I’m a structural engineer. I learnt my trade on building sites and in drawing offices. I’ve found that graduate engineers ive met from elitist uni’s have an impractical and unrealistic approach to design. When you think about it this is unsuprising.
So what you’re trying to say is that you don’t want any social mobility at all? You don’t think people should get what they deserve on merit? Have fun on the dole then. Why shouldn’t someone go to a good university if they are intelligent and have worked hard before going on to get a good job and earn enough to look after their family?
I don’t want any social mobility. Social mobility can only occur within a stratified social structure, why would anyone want that?
Cunt.
@Guy- You say you don’t want a stratified social structure yet you, by being a member of Class War are the ones reinforcing that divide. The rest of the country has moved on; excluding a few of the miniscule group of remaining aristocrats (I’ve never had the pleasure to actually meet someone from one of these ancient families and I understand that there are very few left), society as a whole no longer subscribes to these out dated class divides- no one cares where you came from, it’s where you’re heading that’s important.
@ “Sociologist” You don’t abolish a stratified social structure by ignoring it but by organising on the basis of class.
I actually think this is a really important argument. We have a massive problem that people who manage to get to university from the working classes all too often never return to their origins which then reinforces class divides. It’s a lot more to do with the segregated nature of urban development though – people want to live near where they work and in nicer housing and therefore move away from poor ghettos. Unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse with the new maximum housing benefit cap.
It’s actually all about the division of labour, and that starts in education, the specialists in management, science, medicine and technology all have a vested interest in the maintenance of class society and tenaciously monopolise knowledge to the detriment of everyone else. Profit and power their motive, whether they admit it or not. The formal, hierarchical education system merely reproduces and reinforces that motive.
As reported today FTSE 100 bosses huge pay ‘incentives’ have virtually no impacy on productivity, the qualities of an elite education benefitting no-one but themselves…
As for the ghetto- it is growing exponentially out of the greed of landlords-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/09/london-landlords-desperate-tenants?newsfeed=true
You have to get reasonable grades to get into Cambridge, but well financed state schools (middle class catchment areas, C of E schools, pockets of old grammars) along with personally financed parents can hot house. Otherwise public schools do still have special routes to ensure the smooth prep, public school, Cambridge, simonistic/nepotistic job route.
For goodness sake! Over half of the people at Cambridge are from state schools, the proportion of people who get in from state vs private is the same (within error) as the proportion of candidates who apply from those schools and have the grades. Get over yourself.
You have no idea what you are talking about, you bitter, twisted, ignorant, cunt.
All of my boat are state educated…. class war? I think not. Do some research moron.
How eloquent. Nice to see that your posh education hasn’t gone to waste then. The fact remains, Oxbridge is for, and of, the wealthy upper classes and those social climber’s children who are required to refresh the genepool now and then. We hate you too, class traitors and those middle class wankers with their bourgeois inferiority complexes. Work hard at not working, because that’s all the boss class and intelligentsia is fit for. Idle parasites, the guillotine’s too good for you…
If any of these guys does a Trenton and jumps in front of my boat, I sure as hell am not missing out on bumping up because of that- I’m rowing straight through the sorry waste of space; if he wants a massive hull containing 8 large men (and a small woman) with 8 ten foot long looms ending in cleaver blades to plow into him at high speed then be my guest- just don’t expect me to clear up the bloody mess that follows.
Sounds like you have just admitted conspiracy to cause abh/gbh/murder! And against a peaceful protester. Expect a pre-emptive arrest..
Bring it on, you commie weasels. Quite a lot of rugby boats rowing this year…
Swing, swing together, like rotting fruit hanging from the trees…
I say, chaps, shall we chase off these oikish anarchists in our top hats and white tie? Tally ho!
Blimey! Some really impressive arguments here. You’ve obviously touched a nerve Ian. The ‘state educated’ argument is not very strong (are we meant to be impressed with 50%?). And look at the backgrounds of those who are – mostly from a very small range of state schools and virtuall all from professional families. Worse now than it was a couple of generations ago. A smaller and smaller caste with virtually no one from a working class background. Virtually no one from outside the South East. Certainly no one from FE. A Fenland finishing school. Though, in fairness, the science isn’t bad. Classics, Law, English, and the rest pure, expensive, indulgence.
I think you’ll find Prince Charlie went to Cambridge with two crappy A levels and left with a 2.2… obviously not all about good grades and being bright. Even if we ignore the fundamental lack of opportunities for most working class kids it’s not just about hard work and good grades. There is just no point taking an exception and holding it up to show it breaks the rule. You few who got in to Cambridge from your state schools, well done you but it IS exceptional and more often (not all!) than not there is another story (of actually going to the best grammar school in the area/private tuition/teacher parents etc etc). It’s incontrovertible that Cambridge and Oxford are sites of privilege in which the current unequal social and economic system is reproduced. Today’s PPE class are tomorrow’s cabinet, opposition and BBC upper management.
I live in a council house when I’m not at Cambridge, I had free school meals and EMA when I was in school and sixth form.
The university gives me (and EVERYONE whose parents earn less than £25k p/a) £3500 a year for my living expenses. That is a ridiculous amount of money; it pays for my accommodation and more. Only Oxford and Imperial match that generosity. Most universities offer nowhere near that much money to poor students. If you’re poor and worried about being able to afford university life, then Cambridge is the best place you could come.
You also fail to understand admissions policy. The proportion of state educated students who get the grades to get into Cambridge is roughly (give or take 3%) in line with the proportion of students who are from state schools. In other words: if you’re not happy with the proportion of state educated students at Cambridge, you’re not happy with the state education system more than anything.
In addition, the boat clubs aren’t elitist in the slightest. They’re well funded and teach people to row for free in most cases, whereas town clubs charge hundreds of pounds a year for membership. Why you’re against them is a complete mystery.
We are goin to mash up all da wanky puny bwoys
Most universities offer nowhere near that much money to poor students.”
You’ve just told us that Cambridge has more money than the rest – clearly it’s a place of privileged financial status.
“In other words: if you’re not happy with the proportion of state educated students at Cambridge, you’re not happy with the state education system more than anything.”
And the leaders of the state education system come from which universities?
Everything you’ve said points to Cambridge being an enclave of wealth and privilege, kept that way by it’s alumni in government and wider society.
Except, of course, the one’s who are now decrying their own privileged career path. Or are Gove, Alexander etc. lying?
Let me just think for a moment… Cambridge was founded in 1208 (officially) and most of the colleges appeared within about 3-400 years of that. These are places dedicated to education and have been for hundreds of years, and so yes they have some financial backing now, mostly by sound long-term investment. I, for one, am very happy that the university itself and so many colleges do their utmost to promote outreach and broaden their intake, subsidising those who cannot pay out of their own coffers. This is demonstrably better for social mobility (compare average professional/graduate wages with average national wages).
Secondly @Jabez, yes Max does make a compelling argument in favour of abolishing the fee-paying sector, however, it would only make sense if we could guarantee that in doing so we would maintain the overall standard of education in this country. This has been said time and time again, but it bears repeating, the best (by which I mean meritocratic and beneficial to society as a whole, rather than easy) way to improve social mobility, specifically in people entering university is to improve the state education system not to try and ‘correct’ for someone’s social status during selection. To do this we really need to be able to better motivate our children to learn and give them the opportunity to make the most of their time. To do this we need better teachers, smaller classes and better streaming so that each student is able to learn most efficiently at their own pace.
@ concerned medic.
Also, the abolition of oxbridge, eton and all other institutions geared towards giving their students advantages above those afforded to the vast majority of the population.
Preferably the abolition process would include these grotesque, outdated, sickeningly decadent twat factories burning to the ground with their occupants in situ. (ooo latin! Get me. and I didnt even go to college).
O for christs sake we fuckin hate you posh arrogant fuckers.
“To do this we really need to be able to better motivate our children to learn and give them the opportunity to make the most of their time. ”
And you need to hand out fucking big wads of cash.
Who gets to control the cash flow?
Think – Eton, Oxford, Osborne.
And who is fucking the economy?
Think – King’s School, Cambridge, Masters
Who just yoked future graduates to a shitload of debt?
Think King’s School, Cambridge, BARON Browne
Think Westminster School, Oxford, Clegg
Well well well, kind of a blue blood theme going here.
Absurd, economy wrecking policies aren’t invented and enacted by people from Joe Blogg’s State School, or Ordinarytown University.
No, the kind of wrecking jobs and wealth siphoning that we see can only be done on such a grand scale by the sick fucks from Oxford and Cambridge.
So forget all that shit you talk about the need for more aspiration, aspiration is being destroyed by your fellows – despite their rhetoric.
‘Schooling – the production of knowledge, the marketing of knowledge, which is what the school amounts to, draws society into the trap of thinking that knowledge is hygienic, pure, respectable, deodorized, produced by human heads and amassed in stock….. [B]y making school compulsory, [people] are schooled to believe that the self-taught individual is to be discriminated against; that learning and the growth of cognitive capacity, require a process of consumption of services presented in an industrial, a planned, a professional form;… that learning is a thing rather than an activity. A thing that can be amassed and measured, the possession of which is a measure of the productivity of the individual within the society. That is, of his social value.’
(Ivan Illich quoted by Gajardo 1994: 715)
…and the more exclusive the establishment the more ‘social value’ is ascribed to its members-The public school is supposedly the apotheosis of knowledge and the professions it produces are supposedly the apotheosis of professionalism and social responsibility…But none of these professions were created through democratic election, their opinions never fully defined in relation to the greater good. These professions rest upon achieving a certain academic status, a form of socialisation. Their legitimacy is taken for granted, based on various unspoken assumptions. They define what can and cannot be discussed in the public realm through their various forms of litigation/pressure groups and the media. Ultimately they have colonised and commodified knowledge, keeping it to themselves and then they whine about the criticism born of the class divide that they themselves have brought about, maintained and reproduced.
Shit on your culture, your traditions, your ‘knowledge’, your ‘Dreaming Spires’ and your ‘Copper Kettle’ teas.
Out of interest, what would your alternative system be? Because presumably you agree that we need medics and scientific research? (other things like engineering/lawyers/town-planners etc. are perhaps more open to debate as to their ‘need’ in society so I have left them out) Where/how would these people be trained? Where would scientific research be carried out? No-one has actually stated what their alternative system would be.
Lol. No-one takes Danny “Beaker” Alexander or Michael “Newton’s laws of thermodynamics” Gove seriously.
looks like that german geezer who plastinates people and things………class war anyone.
More money because of sound investments and being aroud a long time? Oh yes. Trinity owns more property than anyone after the Queen and maybe the CofE. And has a £2million wine cellar. It bankrolls the mostly bankrupt other colleges. And it, along with the rest, are an exempt charity so you can’t examine the books (nor pay tax). That is fair, isn’t it? Really fair. Oh yes. An even playing field.
Lots of anecdotal evidence here. Go look at Cambridge (and Oxford’s) own figures. The odd exception (and really, really odd) doesn’t prove anything. You are figleaves for the caste that perpetuates itself at the expense of others.
Can someone elaborate on how disrupting a university boat race, attempting to emancipate a swan and then burning things equates to effective social change?
Seriously though guys you’re all brilliant. Keep up the merriment. x
Bahahaha sorry £2m wine cellar? nonono, its far more than that 😀 and yes its helped out a few other colleges (including mine), but by no means ‘bankrolls the mostly bankrupt other colleges’ At least with trinity, they do run seperate investment arms iirc, with the investments (eg the land which felixstowe docks rents) forming a seperate track to the educational funds.
I still don’t really know what you all want though. I mean I can understand and get behind the idea of everyone having a fair shot in life, but why are you against the idea of handing down the fruits of your labour (i.e. inheritance) if you choose not to fully utilise it and instead save? would you really rather a system where everything was taken away at death? And if not, why shouldn’t trinity, which has been around in its present form for 456 years, not be entitled to that which they invested earlier.
Also as a general point, please stop bitching about the ‘parasitism of the elitist classes'(sic), are we honestly to accept that anything but blue collar work is inherently vile and unjust?
No, but then that’s just the fucking point. You bureaucrats of wealth and knowledge suffer from, at worst, contempt for working class people, and at best, patronage or indifference- and we hate you for it.
Incubus- I do not hold working class people in contempt! If you insist on grouping people into classes (I personally don’t subscribe to the idea) then I assume by ‘working class people’ you mean those working in relatively low paid or manual work? I have the utmost respect for anyone who is willing to slog it out all day every day in any job in order to pull their own weight and provide for their family, whether they’re a builder, lawyer, cleaner or doctor. As a side note I have no respect and actual do have contempt for those who, through pure laziness (I’m certainily not including those who are genuinely disadvanged through no fault of their own) scrounge state benefits which all of the working people of this country contribute to, however these are clearly not ‘working class people’ as working is surely a prime requisite for someone to fall under that heading.
As little as I may like you, judging you purely by your comments, I don’t hate you (I don’t know or particularly want to know you as you have threatened to hang me in an earlier comment; and let’s be honest, that was a little harsh) and you have no good reason to hate me. How about a little bit of ‘live and let live’?
How do i have contempt for working class people?? Both my parents were ‘working class’ but worked their ass off to make sure i could have a decent education, as Student says those who work an honest day’s labour (construction, armed service, surgery or secretarial work) are due far more respect than those who for whatever reason can just sit back and watch their money accumulate. But I think a far more pressing point is why you should be able to judge someone for the labour they do in society. Whatever role you play, you are performing a job/service/role that society has deemed necessary to propagate, and your reward for this is that nebulous term ‘money’. Some roles are deemed to be more challenging than others and hence they are rewarded to a greater degree, to entice the best candidate to the job. Now obviously i am not going to dispute the fact that many people have found ways to exploit this system, but you must be absolutely insane not to see the elegance of a system which reacts and judges an individual’s contribution to society and then recompenses them for that.
Look at all these bellends swarming in, trying to play prolier than thou and then boasting about the prices of wine cellars.
“why shouldn’t trinity, which has been around in its present form for 456 years, not be entitled to that which they invested earlier.”
Invested? Don’t you mean taken and handed over to it by state force?
“Whatever role you play, you are performing a job/service/role that society”
Define “society” in this case.
“Some roles are deemed to be more challenging than others and hence they are rewarded to a greater degree, to entice the best candidate to the job. ”
Does anyone believe that bollocks nowadays? It’s a bit more complex than that isn’t it? I don’t think all those MPs/IMF officials etc going through the revolving door and into £200k consultancies where they don’t have to do anything are being paid because their role is challenging, likewise with all the CEOs handing themselves payrises.
“but you must be absolutely insane not to see the elegance of a system which reacts and judges an individual’s contribution to society and then recompenses them for that.”
Do you seriously believe that a Glencorp employee trading in grain futures and driving up the price of grain for everyone is contributing to society? You have some sort of rosy eyed view of government and market systems as some kind of ideal system built by supremely benevolent people designed to work in the interests of all when in fact it’s controlled by a minority in the interests of a minority and to the detriment to all who are not a part of that minority. Cambridge is very much one of the nexuses of this minority and although you may well point out that it does accept some working class students the purpose of that is quite clear – assimilation.
Oo! Elegant!
I always marvel at the elegance of the system as I pick cardboard off the factory floor for a living.
I think to myself “lucky me, to be such a part of nature’s wondrous elegant economic web!”.
Sometimes I’m so overcome by the simple elegance of it all that I burst into song
“The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
And ordered their estate.”
Is this like the elegant beauty of the rape scene in “A Clockwork Orange?”, or the elegant beauty of which Norman Mailer spoke when he describe the flower-like explosion of bombs dropping on Vietnam?
Or is this like the elegance of the natural world in which predator and prey are perfectly balanced.
But you’re joshing, you’re smart, you don’t believe any of what you say, you know the right delusionary sounding rhetoric to employ to wind up your target. A double layer of conceit, a decoy for the amusement of it.
‘those who for whatever reason can just sit back and watch their money accumulate.’- Ah, that’ll be bankers, hedgefund owners, CEOs, shareholders, landlords and the entire Royal Family…
As for the contemporary state of science and medicine, both of these ‘disciplines’ currently function as vehicles for the accumulation of wealth, not for the benefit of humanity as a whole- very few nations have healthcare systems that offer free or even ‘affordable’ universal treatment as a principled humanitarian reflex to ordinary people’s needs. Big Pharma dominates the field of medicine, and is now plumbing the depths of profitability by the invention of new conditions to treat- creating artificial demand for their products, and charging obscene amounts where the need is greatest… If the profession of medicine was based on humanitarian considerations rather than market shares and commercial competition, many diseases and illnesses would be a thing of the past. Meanwhile it accedes to the privatisation of healthcare systems that were previously socialised, as in the UK.
Science serves the need of capital to innovate new products regardless of their social necessity, with very little ‘consumer input,’ apart from focus groups, who’s views are only considered as a means to creating and manipulating a market for new products. Science, by and large, has no interest in actual progress beyond the profit margin and to this end produces horrific weapons, environmentally destructive crap and useless, wasteful, consumer baubles.
Education, as it stands, is all about reproducing a (post-)industrial consumerist class society- How we would organise the function of education and the production of both medicine, science and technology in a democratic classless society without capitalism, without reproducing the closed hierarchy of professional classes, is a question that would have to be widely debated by everyone in society- but it is worth saying that many ‘greatest’ scientists never received any formal education or training.
Human creativity is quite capable of producing systems that satisfy social need without generating disgusting inequality-but the trouble is of-course, that whenever we get anywhere close to having this debate, we are attacked, imprisoned, murdered or legislated against- in short, repressed by the very professional classes that feel most threatened by our conversation and our desire to escape from their power…
Remember the anti apartheid movement. Boycotted SA products. Let us boycott everything from Cambridge, make a list of Cambridge products, their books, theatres where ex Cambridge tossers are performing. Publish names of products made by their scientists in their infamous laboraties and boycott.
A further contribution from The Tab, by Charlie Bell: http://cambridgetab.co.uk/opinion/take-your-class-war-elsewhere
I’ve read quite a few comments by Cambridge boaties that if anyone tries to disrupt their races on 16 June, they’d rather the protestors are killed than be successful in their attempt to disrupt. Most have said that they themselves would be willing to kill the protestors. They point out how dangerous a weapon an oar can be, and a boat, and how easy it is to drown.
Perhaps the police should be forewarned?
It’s actually pretty damn difficult to drown in the Cam as most of it around cambridge is only a few feet deep- though it would be great if some of you would try and, who knows, perhaps we might get lucky.
Thanks for the tactical information- time to dig out those waders!