The new Shadow Cabinet: overwhelmingly white, privileged and heterosexual

I’ve done a quick audit of the Shadow Cabinet following last night’s election and Labour’s new front bench team emerges as a group of privileged, heterosexual white people.

Take their educational background. Of the 19 people elected, eight went to fee-paying schools and two went to grammars. Of the other three people in the Shadow Cabinet, two were educated privately and one at a grammar. In other words, a majority did not go to comprehensives. If you include Ed Miliband, six members of Labour’s front bench team did PPE at Oxford and nine went to either Oxford or Cambridge.

So much for social diversity. What about ethnic diversity? Not a single Briton of African-Caribbean origin was elected and the UK’s black and minority ethnic population is represented by just one man, Sadiq Khan. No Welshmen in the Shadow Cabinet either.

Sexual diversity? Admittedly, Labour scores a single point here – Angela Eagle is a lesbian – but no homosexual men were elected. Indeed, two of the Party’s most prominent homosexuals – Chris Bryant and Ben Bradshaw – were both surprise losers.

So much for the party of inclusion. If you’re a gay man or a man or woman of African-Caribbean origin there’s no room for you at the top of the modern Labour Party. On the contrary, your best bet of getting ahead is if you’re a white heterosexual who was privately educated and went on to study PPE at Oxford.


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100058028/just-how-diverse-is-the-shadow-cabinet/

> On the contrary, your best bet of getting ahead is if you’re a white
> heterosexual who was privately educated and went on to study PPE at Oxford.

... if you are a white politician who was privately educated and went on to
study PPE at Oxford then there is a reasonable chance that there will be a
shock-horror disclosure about your homosexuality in the future ...

:hide:

So is Toby Young.

And almost all the Cabinet are white privileged heterosexual males, and many of them did PPE at Oxford if it comes to that.

Yes, the Labour leaders too are not exactly representative of the population as a whole. But few are as aristocratic as Cameron or Osborne. Cameron is a direct descendant of King William IV, the uncle and predecessor of Queen Victoria, by one of his 10 illegitimate children by his mistress. So though William died 'without issue', his descendant is ruling us after all. King William appears in an old drinking song:

'So loudly sing for Billy our King,
Who lifted the tax upon beer!'

Whereas his descendant put 20% VAT on everything...

In any case, it's not just background but attitudes. Better an aristocrat who favours justice for all, like Tony Benn, than someone who rises from a poor background and then stomps all over poor people, like Norman Tebbit.

Speaking of backgrounds, I was very startled to find that the arch-elitist on education, Toby Young, is the son of left-wing educational sociologist Michael Young - who must be turning in his grave.