LETTERS Down with public school
Sir: It was startling to hear Douglas Hurd, when presenting The Search for Peace on BBC 2, lapse from political correctness by saying of Anthony Eden, 'An Etonian, and none the worse for it!' Eden would have been a lot the worse for it today, in fact he might not even have got into Parliament. Not a single Harrovian was elected last May, and such Carthusians and Wykehamists as get in keep a very low profile. After Lord Hurd's elevation there survive, with a few others, two prominent Etonians, Tam Dalyell and Alan Clark. Tony Blair never mentions Fettes, but William Hague is grateful for the very good education he received at a comprehensive school, and, to his credit, is without hostility to independent schools. It is the anonymous constituency selection committees who deprive the peo- ple of the chance of voting for many poten- tial Attlees, Gaitskells or Macmillans who never get their foot on the bottom rung of politics. Oxbridge openly discriminates against independent schools, and Robin Cook has announced he wants to keep their candidates out of the Foreign Office. It is commonplace for job applicants to omit the name of their school — just writing 'sec- ondary school' and the dates. We have not yet reached the rigid castes of Stalin's regime, when a dedicated Communist could be demoted or sacked if an enemy accused him of being 'of unreliable bourgeois origin'.
Sooner or later, someone who has been victimised because his employers found out where he was educated many years ago, will initiate a test case for compensation for educational discrimination.
Gordon M.L. Smith
9 Greenfield Way, Storrington, West Sussex
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