There’s nothing the ruling Labour political class likes more than propagating the Oxbridge class myth that the Conservative party is a cosy PPE graduate club, its cabinet full of over-privileged Bullingdon members, whilst Labour is the party of merit, ‘social equality’ and equal opportunity.
Burnham arrived in No. 10 promising radical change. But a glance at his government appointments makes a joke of any idea that Labour is the real party of merit. The new PM likes to wear dark Don Johnson-like T-shirts and peddle the idea that he is different – that he comes from a working-class northern family and that reading English at Cambridge didn’t really change him. That he was not part of a privileged elite who attended May Balls, punted on the Cam and waltzed into their first job at the ‘BBC’ or investment banks. Young Andy, instead, took an unpaid job at the Middleton Guardian.
This idea of an Oxbridge club that favours those with the right ‘connections’ is a Labour class warrior myth
This narrative was presented when Burnham was interviewed by a podcast, filmed at Downing Street, called Jimmy’s Jobs of the Future, hosted by Jimmy McLoughlin, son of former Tory chairman and MP Sir Patrick McLoughlin. Talking of his time reading English at Cambridge (graduating with a 2:1 degree in 1991), Burnham said: ‘The people I’d been at university with, who had very connected parents, were just walking straight into internships at the Times, placements at the BBC, into Goldman Sachs and all sorts of things.’
