the class ceiling

Gordon Brown's attack on Oxbridge elitism last week was supposed to be for the benefit of state school pupils. But does he have ulterior motives?

It has become more, much more, than the story of one northern comprehensive pupil being rejected by the top university in the land. Laura Spence, a pupil at Monkseaton Community High School, was not the first person with 10 straight As in her GCSEs to be turned down by Oxford University, but she was the second person from the North Tyneside comprehensive to be refused a place at the university in two years. And despite not showing enough "potential" for Magdalen College, Spence won a #65,000 scholarship to Harvard University in the USA.

Gordon Brown described Spence's case as a "scandalous" example of how inaccessible the UK's top universities are to state school pupils. "I say it is time to end the old Britain where what mattered was the privilege you were born to, not the potential you were born with," said the Chancellor. "Remove the old barriers, open up our universities and let everyone move ahead."

Brown's attack on Oxford appears to have been far from opportunistic. Instead, it was part of a calculated plan to begin rolling out Labour's own populist strategy ahead of next year's general election campaign.

The Chancellor and his colleagues emerged from last Thursday's Cabinet meeting with an assessment that they had to regain ground against the Tories' populist policies on immigration, pensions and law and order. The feeling among ministers is that Hague's common sense revolution, while pandering to baser political instincts, is beginning to take root.

Brown, who will be in charge of Labour's election strategy, is part of the inner government team that has already identified its plans for a second term. Among these core party policies, which will be emphasised over the coming months, will be measures to bring more working class people into university education. The Spence case is only the beginning of a concerted assault on elitism, which continued yesterday with Foreign Secretary Robin Cook complaining that his own staff was dominated by the Oxbridge elite.

Cook highlighted the large Oxbridge presence among senior officials at the Treasury and within his own Foreign Office, where last year 44% of those recruited to the "policy entry" - the fast- track high-flyers destined to advise ministers - were Oxbridge graduates.

"I want our Foreign Office to represent modern Britain today," he said. "People should be able to get on on the basis of merit, on the basis of drive, on the basis of effort, not the basis of which school they went to, and that's what we're determined to change." If any signal were required that this is not an opportunistic pop at the upper classes it is the support of Cook, who is no political ally of Brown's.

Not that the Edinburgh University-educated Chancellor is frightened to take on the dreaming spires on his own. Brown has been at war with the elitism of Oxbridge before now. He was central to the decision to cut #11 million from the budgets of the two universities which, thanks to them receiving a generous proportion of the overall university budget in England and Wales, have maintained the position as centres of educational excellence for years.

His latest intervention left the Oxbridge establishment and its allies apoplectic. "Who will be the next victim of New Labour's Maoist assault on excellence?" asked a Telegraph editorial last week. It held that Brown's views were "untrue, uneducated and unworthy".

Oxford, and to a lesser extent Cambridge, launched a media counter- offensive to prove, statistically speaking, that there is no prejudice against state-educated children. It showed that 53% of Oxford students came from comprehensive schools last year and insisted that there was no prejudice against background or accent.

However, the strategy was severely undermined when one of the lecturers defending the line left the notes from Spence's interview behind in a BBC radio studio. While confirming that the north east pupil would make an excellent doctor, it noted that she lacked confidence, "as with other comprehensive school pupils". Oxford is at pains to point out that this note was a helpful pointer to compensate as far as possible for any disadvantage there might have been for her state school background.

The elitism which the Chancellor complains about undoubtedly exists and influences the upper echelons of British society. Andrew Marr, soon to be the BBC's political editor and something of an authority on the wiring of the new elites the Blair government has ushered in, finds the Oxbridge network is remarkably resilient.

Sure there are new elites emerging, says Marr, such as the McKinsey London office and the LWT network headed by his new boss Greg Dyke, but it will take a long time to blunt the influence of the Oxbridge mafia.

Previously the "group of chums who essentially run the world, or at least this part of it" would have been found in the City or the civil service. Now they are more likely to inhabit the political and media arenas. The reason why, as Spence's Oxford critics observed, is because they are trained to be more articulate.

Marr feels there is a distinctly English self-confidence which starts in the 47 London day schools (private primary schools) and, in the provinces, at places such as Manchester Grammar.

At these private schools, for example, pupils at the age of seven or eight are taught how to speak in public on the merits of Roald Dahl novels. "In the new entertainment/info economy these are the skills you need rather than getting straight As and Bs," says Marr. In Oxbridge, these skills are more finely honed and the embryonic networks are established that become useful for the rest of your life. "If you play the game you've got a network for life."

But Marr notes a more insidious strategy in Brown's attack. Having baulked at the chance to dismantle the grammar school system in England and Wales the party is hardly likely to have a go at the private school system. While New Labour would never contemplate legislation to rein in the Oxbridge elite, what Brown aims to do is change the culture of expectations among these discerning consumers of education, the middle class parents.

"In the past, parents thought their chances of getting their children into Oxbridge would be increased by sending them to private school," says Marr. "By attacking the entrance system of Oxbridge, Brown clearly aims to undermine the public school system."

He may be right. The clear determinants of middle class success in Britain sill appear to be wealth, inherited or earned, which can be used to buy your children into prep school and public school and so earn them a place at Oxbridge. By attacking the entrance system, Brown is sending out a clear signal that public schooling is no longer a guarantee of entrance to the British elite. Conversely he hopes to build up parental confidence in the state system as a means of delivering academic success and is willing to throw his weight, if not his revenue taxes, behind the case.

Alan Ryan, warden of New College, points out that the basic inequality in the make-up of students at Oxbridge is not their admission policy - even if it is flawed - but the social division in society. The 80% of the children with the best qualifications come from social classes one and two. "You can't change that by tinkering with Oxbridge admission rules," he says.

context Oxford University this year offered just over half of its places, 53%, to pupils from state schools. This means that 47% were going to pupils of public schools, which educate just 7% of children in England.

Edinburgh University offers 61% of its places to state pupils, while 94% of students at Glasgow Caledonian come from comprehensive schools.

80% of students with the best school results come from social class one and two.

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