The Guardian’s fight against a ‘class-ridden society’

In a strident editorial yesterday, the Guardian newspaper made the case for hiring people from a wider range of backgrounds: ‘Divisions between academic and vocational education are symptomatic of our class-ridden society’ the left-wing paper preached from its pulpit.

The article then tutted that ‘Four out of the last five education secretaries went to the same university (answers on a postcard please).’

Terrible stuff, of course. But if it’s such a bad thing that recent education ministers went to a top university, Mr S has to wonder, has the Guardian applied the lessons to its own leadership?

A look at the paper’s most recent editors and where they went to school, suggests perhaps not:

• Katharine Viner, current editor, Pembroke College, Oxford
• Alan Rusbridger, editor 1995 – 2015, Magdalene College, Cambridge
• Peter Preston, editor 1975 – 1995, St John’s College, Oxford
• Alastair Hetherington, editor 1956 – 1975, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
• A. P. Wadsworth, editor 1944 – 1956, left school at 14

Clearly, a class-ridden society isn’t such a bad thing after all…