The fall of the meritocracy

I caught the figure strolling towards me out the corner of my eye. At first I thought I was mistaken. Then it nearly took my breath away.

I was standing in the impressive wooden-beamed assembly hall of Paisley Grammar, where I’d gathered at the start of each school day many years before, silent and smartly uninformed, along with 900 other pupils. The current head was explaining how this ancient institution, dating back to the 16th century, was still giving children as fine an education as the one I had enjoyed.

It was then I noticed the policeman coming along the corridor and into the hall, sauntering along as if his presence were as natural as a French or physics teacher. His uniform was clean and tidy. So was his stab vest.

It’s been 35 years since Paisley Grammar was a selective state school dedicated to getting pupils into university or the professions. It’s now what Alastair Campbell would call a ‘bog-standard’ comprehensive. I could see it was catering for a wider range of abilities and that school uniform had become an optional extra. But I wasn’t ready for it having its own policeman with his own wee police station. I was told it’s now quite common in state schools. That didn’t make me any less sad.

I was back at my old school for a BBC documentary on social mobility, asking whether politics had again become the preserve of the privileged and if someone from my ordinary background could still enjoy the same opportunities I had.

It’s an increasingly relevant question. The resignations last week of Alan Johnson and Andy Coulson — boys from council estates who dragged themselves to top political positions through ability and ambition — suggest senior politicos from ordinary backgrounds are an endangered species at Westminster. There are no more Johnsons in Labour’s elite, and very few Coulsons close to Cameron.