For decades, the class divide was the dominant theme of British politics. Labour’s election pitch would be that the Tories were the party for the rich. Labour championed the working class majority. Labour was funded by the trade unions. The Conservatives had donations from large companies and wealthy individuals.
It was never absolute, of course. Socialists had support from some middle-class intellectuals – the Hampstead set, the Bloomsbury set and so on. The Conservatives had to get millions of working-class votes or they could have never won any elections. Since the end of the First World War, property ownership had ceased to be a qualification for being able to vote. At that time, only 23% of households were home owners – private renting dominated. If it was the haves versus the have nots, the have nots would always be the majority.
So the Conservatives relied on the argument that good stewardship of the economy was in the interests of rich and poor alike.
Yet there was no doubt that social class was a pretty good clue to voting intention. It was there in the statistics and I encountered it many times in flesh and blood over the years knocking on doors to canvass for the Conservatives.
Then came the EU referendum in 2016. I was out campaigning for the Vote Leave campaign. I spotted that the hostility came from the well-spoken middle classes in their smart houses. The doors were quickly closed after some sneer about ‘snake oil salesmen’ or ‘deluded bigots’. On the council estates, the cockneys gave me a hero’s welcome. It was all the other way round from the previous 20 years trudging the streets on behalf of the Tories.
Brexit – followed by Boris Johnson becoming Conservative leader – then prompted a realignment of party political allegiance. The 2019 General Election saw Labour crushed in the ‘red wall’ but holding on in such affluent bastions as Bristol and Hove. London, too, saw their vote hold up relatively well – Putney was their only gain on the night.
This trend would appear to have continued. The pollsters More in Common have conducted a survey of voting intention by the type of school a voter attended. Among those who went to state school, the findings are grim for Labour. 33% back Reform UK, with 20% for Labour followed by the Conservatives on 17%. When it comes to those who went to grammar schools, Labour fell into third place on just 14%. The Conservatives are on 23%, with Reform UK on 34%.
But it is a very different picture among those who went to independent schools. The Daily Telegraph reports:
The survey of 2,037 adults earlier this month, who were asked where they attended school between the ages of 12 to 16, found that 38 per cent of independent school alumni would vote for Labour in any immediate general election. That compares with a quarter of former private school pupils, who said they would vote for Reform, and just 17 per cent who said they would vote for the Conservatives.
The irony, of course, is that the Labour Government is currently out to punish independent schools by charging VAT on school fees.
Yet there are plenty of socialists who feel guilty about having had the good fortune to attend independent schools and often feel even more guilty about providing their children with the same advantage – rather than following egalitarian principles. Perhaps having to pay VAT will salve their consciences.
Another irony is that woke excesses are rather more likely to be found in independent schools than at state ones.
Katharine Birbalsingh, the headmistress of the outstanding Michaela Community School, a free school in Wembley, feels that independent schools have lost their way. ‘In the 1980s and 1990s, the private schools were the traditional, boring schools with good, old-fashioned, teacher-led learning,’ she says. ‘When we opened Michaela, our main sign outside the school said ‘private school ethos without the fees’. She has taken the sign down.
I heard her speak at a History Reclaimed conference in Cambridge last year, where she made the startling claim that ‘children are being taught to hate our country’. She also felt that independent schools were the worst culprits in distorting what is taught to suit ‘social justice’ and progressive fashions.
That would seem to be right. The children at these schools are encouraged to feel an odd combination of smug superiority but also the need for ‘allyship’ with victims. So they are the most likely to take a day off from their classes to go to an Extinction Rebellion demo, or put up Black Lives Matter banners.
They are also the most likely to go on to university and graduate to a comfortable job behind a public sector desk.
It is still understandable that those who want the best for their children and can afford it see independent schools as the option with the highest standards. But it might come as a surprise to some of the parents that these institutions are not immune from Leftist indoctrination. The answer is to have wider choice with independent schools becoming more affordable so that the pupils who attend them feel less awkward about doing so. It is unfortunate that the imposition of VAT will do the opposite.
The broader message is that Labour’s traditional bash-the-rich message has become ever more hypocritical and absurd. It is welcome that the dreary class divide in our elections has broken down.
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