Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK

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Chums has its inevitable chapter on the antics of Boris Johnson and David Cameron at the “Buller”, a cosplay England of mustard-coloured waistcoats and social condescension. Those were the days. Beyond the panelled debating chambers and honey-stoned colleges, modernity and change could feel like decline. Progress could feel like decline. Little wonder, then, that Kuper identifies Oxford as the incubator of Brexit. In truth,” writes Kuper, with an even-handedness surely acquired during his early schooling in the Netherlands, “almost everyone who gets into Oxford is a mixture of privilege and merit in varying proportions.” Though mostly privilege. At the start of the 21st century, private schools (which at the time educated about 7 per cent of the population) supplied around half of Oxford’s domestic student intake. Kuper quotes the former Labour minister Andrew Adonis: “The place felt like one huge public school to which a few others of us had been smuggled in by mistake.” He also misses the reasons for why non-Oxbridge Brits put up with this. Why is this system able to persist in the UK and not in others. Why do Brits gleefully send their kids to Boarding school? And why do they pay such attention to class and accent in the UK? Ultimately, Oxford is part of the broader issue. Would be interesting to get a fuller picture in a longer book. Chumsis a snapshot of a time gone by, bringing alive 1980s Oxford in vivid detail. It acts as a warning about a future without social mobility, showing the disproportionate influence closed networks can play. Simon Kuper’s writing makes the book a gripping read from start to finish, taking you step-by-step from university days and the Oxford Union right to Coronavirusand the heart of government. The book’s thesis, that Oxford (and specifically the Oxford Union) played a formative role in the rise of politicians like Johnson and the idea of Brexit, is thought-provoking; however, I feel we need to consider the counterfactual to judge the extent to which this is true. Ultimately, if Oxford was cut out of the story, would Johnson still be PM? I think the answer is most probably.

Moravcsik, Andrew (1 November 2022). "Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK". Foreign Affairs. No.November/December 2022. ISSN 0015-7120 . Retrieved 2 July 2023. This book is a wry look at the British ruling class and how, in many cases, their attendance at the University of Oxford facilitated their access to the levers of political power. On p. 3, Kuper notes that since the Second World War, no fewer than 11 out of 15 British Prime Ministers went to Oxford. I too learned at Oxford how to write and speak for a living without much knowledge.” Confesses the author point and he is clearly fully aware of his privilege and the life-long advantages it has given him. He later adds, If your life passage has taken you from medieval rural home to medieval boarding school to medieval Oxford college and finally to medieval parliament, you inevitably end up thinking: ‘What could possibly go wrong?’.” This was the atmosphere into which Etonian Boris Johnson arrived at Oxford in 1983, the same year I was there for my interview. After getting accepted, Johnson and others like him spent their university years honing peculiarly British political skills, which involved treating politics as a game. The Oxford Union debating society is set up like the House of Commons chamber, though Union debates never result in real policies with real consequences. When not fantasy debating, the youngsters would have fun trying to get themselves elected to the few administrative positions on offer at the Union.Neil Lee ( @ndrlee) is Professor of Economic Geography at the Department of Geography and Environment at LSE and leads the Cities, Jobs and Economic Change Research Theme at the International Inequalities Institute.

Kuper, Simon. "Becoming French is like winning the lottery". Archived from the original on 11 December 2022 . Retrieved 6 August 2022.

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However his central point - when he’s not spoiling his argument by ranting - that the system needs a shake up , I buy that wholeheartedly. In his 2019 diary, following the election of the current Prime Minister, Alan Bennett wrote “It’s a gang, not a government.”

Of course this toxic, maligned template then gets forced onto the public at large with devastating consequences, which is how you end up with what the UK has been enduring for well over a decade. A disastrous system which is run by the same kind of people for the same kind of people, which is designed at its very heart to extract and exploit the neediest and poorest and society, whilst doing everything in its power and control to amass vast control and wealth for itself, whilst remaining totally devoid of compassion.However, despite the fun I had reading it, I would be falling into my own ideological biases if I didn't mention the sloppiness of Kuper's reasoning. The author seems to believe in a kind of Great Man Theory of History, wherein chaps from the elite think Great Thoughts, and then put those thoughts into actions, shaping world history as if there were no concrete social relations that they inhabited. Whether you agreed with the Brexit referendum or not, the fact that a populace had to be persuaded to either side cannot be ignored, but Kuper seems to think that isn't the case.