Why Can't You Get a Good Job? Wrong School

If you have ever wondered why you can't get a top job, it turns out that unless you went to one of a handful of the most expensive private schools in Britain, you stand very little chance of breaking in.

Alan Milburn's Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has finally released its report into how people's backgrounds affect their lives.

If you have ever wondered why you can't get a top job, it turns out that unless you went to one of a handful of the most expensive private schools in Britain, you stand very little chance of breaking in.

Despite the fact that only 7% of us go to these schools, their ex-pupils make up 71% of top judges, 62% of top armed forces officers, 55% of top civil servants, 53% of top diplomats, and 44% of those on the Sunday Times rich list.

Even more importantly, 36% of cabinet ministers, 33% of MPs and 50% of members of the House of Lords went to private schools, and given their power in deciding the direction of the country this is a bad situation.

It is made worse for the unemployed; if so many politicians come from backgrounds which guarantee them whatever job they want, they cannot possibly understand the challenges of worklessness the rest of us have to deal with.

When we at UnemployedNet talk of our problems being made worse by a terrible alliance of newspapers and politicians, it turns out their shared background shows why this is likely - 43% of columnists in the national press went to private schools, and 54% of top media people.

Is it any wonder that we are living through a time when public attitudes towards the poor, and particularly the unemployed, are so hard, when they are being led by so many wealthy people who share a pro-rich andti-poor culture?

Milburn agrees, saying that a lack of diversity at the top was "not a recipe for a healthy democratic society".

"Where institutions rely on too narrow a range of people from too narrow a range of backgrounds with too narrow a range of experiences, they risk behaving in ways and focusing on issues that are of salience only to a minority but not the majority in society."

The millionaire's tax cut introduced by George Osborne in his 2012 budget is an example of this, but far worse is that saving money for his friends was accompanied by chopping support for the poor, including all those who need to rely on benefits.

It is not hard to imagine that when out for dinner with people in their inner circles, the likes of Osborne and Cameron are more likely to hear complaints about the tax burden than the difficulties of living on Jobseeker's Allowance.

As Chancellor and Prime Minister it is also unlikely that they ever bother doing constituency work, and they will never meet the workless poor in this or any other context.

What Milburn should have said is not so much that the power elite focus on their clique's issues.

It is that they have no understanding or even awareness that poverty issues exist except in the most theoretical way, and that these problems never touch anyone they love.

It is no wonder that the poor, both working and workless, get such a raw deal in today's UK.

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