Oxbridge: my part in its downfall

They are flying the flag at half mast on the Cherwell and the Cam. The Dreaming Spires are convulsed by a nightmare. Twenty-two years ago, I wrote a book called The Oxbridge Conspiracy that nearly did for me as a working journalist. In it, I pointed out that most people in positions of power and influence in the UK, from politics to comedy (same thing, really), had been to Oxford or Cambridge.

I was savaged by reviewers, all but one of whom, had been to the aforementioned finishing schools. Andrew Roberts, with whom I have since made up, described me as having been awarded a Third at the University of Life, where I had obviously shared a staircase with John Major. I was derided by Melvyn Bragg on Start the Week (though defended by Ken Loach). When Andrew Neil gave me a reluctant thumbs-up in the FT, the Pink ‘Un immediately commissioned a second review by the Cambridge academic Nigel Spivey, in which, amid rich excoriation, he recalled with pride how he and his fellow titans, as undergraduates, liked to engage in mutual micturation.

One leading editor, whom I shall not name for fear of the consequences, laughed in my face and cancelled my freelance contract. In short, it was not a happy time for me.

In the end, Penguin Books withdrew the paperback from sale when Dillons – then the UK’s biggest books retailer, run by Oxbridge types – refused to stock it.

But am I downhearted? No. For I bring vital news from the Varsities front. Since no one else appears to have noticed, here is the higher education make-up of the new Tory Cabinet:

Oxford 6 (including the PM)
Cambridge 5
Glasgow 1 (Liam Fox)
Redbrick and “new” 9
Non-graduate 1 (ex-miner Patrick McLoughlin)

For the first time since amphibians crawled out of Britain’s primordial swamp – or at least since Jim Callaghan ran the country from Downing Street – the government of the United Kingdom will not be dominated by products of England’s ancient universities. Yes, Oxonians and Cantabridgeans, accounting for just 4 per cent of all graduates, still occupy half the seats in the Cabinet, but representatives of the other 96 per cent now have bums on the other half.

Let church bells ring out! Vive la révolution!

There is, of course, no room for complacency. As my friend Ivo Dawnay (Cantab), married to Boris’s sister Rachel, reminded me this morning, three of the great offices of State are still in enemy hands – Number 10 (May), Number 11 (Philip Hammond) and the FCO (Boris). Only the Home Office has been secured, and even then not by Redbricks, but by the University of Edinburgh, in the person of Amber Rudd.

Massive progress all the same. And it’s all down to me. As my fellow oik John Major would say, oh yes.