Don't forget the grammar school system is still alive and well in some places in England - I live in one of those areas and moving here was an eye-opener.
Nothing could be more true than your statement "...generally grammar schools were a way for middle-class children to get a free education equivalent to one they could get at a minor public school.....".
Parents who have resources screw with the system like anything and without any shame, from getting solicitors involved, to out and out lying, to 12 months of tutoring for little Jeanie that is only about passing the 11 plus. Oh of course it still means a bright kid from any background should be able to get in, if everything else was equal - but everything else isn't equal. I've known parents who dreaded the idea of their kid getting to a local grammar if they passed their 11 plus - because of the incidental costs involved. Uniforms tend to be more expensive; they tend to need more equipment and kit because they get a more varied curriculum, there are more and much more expensive school trips and so on. It all adds up.
Sadly, it's a corrupted system.
I wasn't actually advocating for the return of grammar schools. I was pointing out that as long as there is a level of elite education that people can buy into - and let's not kid ourselves, how many parents do you know who have a spare £40K per annum + expenses on top - then there will always be the problem of the UK being ruled by a bunch of out of touch toffs because they are the only people presumed acceptable for the role of PM.
I feel sure that Sunak sincerely believes he is there by merit and I have to say whilst you are in the system you cannot see the system. It is only now at a distance and having read the book
The Class Ceiling - although ironically I studied Sociology as an optional subject for my degree and read it for leisure - that it smacked me like a brick that _DOH! of course I was carried along by privilege all the time, without even realising it. All those times I turned up at a job interview and given the job without even a question being asked, it just suddenly became clear. We each thinkw e are ordinary but then wait! So my mother newly separated was able to buy a four bed house in a leafy area thanks to a deposit from her parents and I happened to go to a reasonably prestigious school which was nearby. I had a proper employment pension plan before they became compulsory. I had training contracts enabling me to bunk off once a week to a top shiny business college (no distance learning needed, everything needed to pass professional exams laid on) and then, here's the rub, once having passed a ridiculous number of mindbending exams...you still need to find two suitably qualified people to endorse you for membership (mentorship, sponsorship). Reading this tome just suddenly made me realise oh my goodness, yes, everyone in my family is naturally bright and able to pass exams, but
I was cruising along on privilege and never saw it before. The class system in the UK means you can't just 'work hard and make sacrifices', you have to send out the right social code signals in order to even get your foot in the door. There were many times I was broke, and like everybody had good times and bad times, but all along I had the safety net which those who do not have inherited wealth never do, and I never saw it.
The idea of merit is just an illusion. Here in Finland schools like Winchester and Eton are actually
illegal. You cannot buy yourself into the establishment. When you look at the scandinavian, nordic and baltic nations and even New Zealand and they manage to recruit perfectly decent prime ministers who don't look anything like Billy Bunter or Lord Snooty. PM Sanna Marin grew up in a social housing apartment with a single parent who was in a same sex relationship. She was in her early thirties when she took on the role and wears trendy clothes.
I think Liz Truss gets it as she went to an ordinary comprehensive and her parents took her on protest marches. Her dad is a professor, sure, but the lecturers I know rarely earned more than about £45,000 (some years ago) which is hardly super wealth league. When she got to Oxford she will have had the culture shock of being one of the rare ordinary middle classes. However, whilst you are the class system you really don't see how you are privileged, so people think Truss is criticising the quality of teaching or the school buildings and are incredibly offended by the perceived insult. However, I don't think that was the point she was making.
