Richard Vaughan cites Sutton Trust research and Justine Greening’s speech at the Sutton Trust-Carnegie summit in the i.

In naming Eton, Ms Greening also raised the spectre of the old boys’ network, the informal but powerful clique that ensures people who went to a handful of private schools end up in the jobs and positions of power that run Britain. But does such a network really exist any longer? Wasn’t it swept away by the social upheaval of the 1960s or during the Tony Blair years when the idea of a meritocracy was a mantra for New Labour? Statistics suggest otherwise. Privately educated people undoubtedly dominate the most senior positions in both civic and business life.

According to 2016 research by the social mobility charity the Sutton Trust, 74 per cent of top judges, 61 per cent of top doctors and 51 per cent of print journalists went to a private school. These high-flyers are drawn from a section of society – the privately educated – who make up just 7 per cent of the population. Politics is more egalitarian: 32 per cent of MPs were educated in the independent sector. But it is worth adding that 33 of Britain’s 54 Prime Ministers attended either Eton, Harrow or Westminster. Eton alone educated 19, including Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and David Cameron.

Lee Elliot-Major, chief executive of the Sutton Trust, has literally written the book about social mobility. It is called Social Mobility and its Enemies and points to the “persistence” of privately educated people at the top of society. “There is a remarkable staying power of the privately educated elite,” Elliot-Major says. “What is equally remarkable is the breadth of professions where they dominate. From the creative industries to the more traditional professions – it can be a closed shop. “People talk about this post-war period when there was a boom in social mobility. While there might have been more opportunity after the war, it has almost always been the case that those from private school backgrounds took the jobs at the top.”

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