Norton-Taylor, Richard (20 March 2021). "The Happy Traitor by Simon Kuper review – the extraordinary story of George Blake". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 2 July 2023. of the public are educated at private schools. Sunak's current cabinet is made up of 65% privately educated ministers However, despite the fun I had reading it, I would be falling into my own ideological biases if I didn't mention the sloppiness of Kuper's reasoning. The author seems to believe in a kind of Great Man Theory of History, wherein chaps from the elite think Great Thoughts, and then put those thoughts into actions, shaping world history as if there were no concrete social relations that they inhabited. Whether you agreed with the Brexit referendum or not, the fact that a populace had to be persuaded to either side cannot be ignored, but Kuper seems to think that isn't the case. This is an edited extract from Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK by Simon Kuper, published by Profile on 28 April. Simon Kuper is a British, and naturalized French, author and journalist, best known for his work at the Financial Times and as a football writer. After studies at Oxford, Harvard University and the Technische Universität Berlin, Kuper started his career in journalism at the FT in 1994, where he today writes about a wide range of topics, such as politics, society, culture, sports and urban planning. [2]

Chums: Updated with a new chapter eBook : Kuper, Simon

Engaging and detailed ... [This] may be the last generation of such Oxford Tories, yet their policies may well influence the United Kingdom for generations' How can you tell a man attended Oxford?” Victor Lewis Smith once joked. “Because he’ll tell you in the first sentence.” For most of us, the subject is irrelevant, boring and self-absorbed. Oxford is barely worth a day trip; the centre of the city looks pretty in summer, but most of it’s a dump, and a cup of tea won’t get you much change out of a fiver. I taught history at the University of Sussex, in Brighton, and much preferred it. Oxford doesn’t have a pier. Running the country or ruining the country? Tell me when it’s time to get out the knitting needles. To be in with a chance of winning a copy of Emma Dabiri’s new book along with this stunning pastel nail polish giftset from Télle Moi, simply… A father of a child at the school said that what I may not understand is that Eton is itself a charity.You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side. It’s not long since I read Sad Little Men: Private Schools and the Ruin of England, an angry account of the damage inflicted by private boarding schools which skirts around similar territory. The tones of the two books are notably different: while Beard is viscerally angry, Kuper feels more inquisitive. He also comes up with some interesting suggestions on how to correct the problems he identifies. Simon Kuper’s new book, Chums: How A Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK, is, the subtitle promises, the story of how a cadre of Oxford-educated Tories glommed on to power and, ultimately, fomented Brexit. Kuper is a Financial Times columnist who went to university in Oxford in the 1980s at roughly the same time as Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Michael Gove, David Cameron, Dominic Cummings and many other Tory grandees. Even during the 1980s when only 13% of people went to Higher Education, less than 0.5% of those graduated from an Oxbridge College, yet 13 of the 17 post war Prime Ministers graduated from Oxford University. Four of them educated at one very exclusive private school in Berkshire (you know the one)

‘A nursery of the Commons’: how the Oxford Union created

Fascinating ... The picture Kuper draws is of a nation with a decadent and deeply unprofessional ruling class, a diagnosis with which it is impossible to disagree' MyHome.ie (Opens in new window) • Top 1000 • The Gloss (Opens in new window) • Recruit Ireland (Opens in new window) • Irish Times Training (Opens in new window) SK: They seem to be doing this more and more. I rewrote my last chapter of ‘Chums’ recently to reflect my admiration for things like this. And it’s difficult for Oxford to have to correct a very class-based school system. What they shouldn’t do, is what they used to do, and that’s to say that it’s not their fault. That they only accept the best, meaning the best prepared. a b "BSME Awards 2016 – the winners". www.inpublishing.co.uk. 16 November 2016 . Retrieved 2 July 2023. Interview, Oxstu Profile (5 June 2023). "In conversation with Simon Kuper". The Oxford Student . Retrieved 2 July 2023.He publishes a well-read column in the weekend edition FT Magazine [2] and has twice been awarded the British Society of Magazine Editors' prize for Columnist of the Year. [3] [4] Kuper has also written for outlets such as The Guardian and The Times. [5] Rhetorically engaging, fantastically written, and well researched. This book has all the hot gossip from Oxford in the 1980s, exploring how that generation of graduates was shaped, and how they are now shaping Britain. Cherwell Magazine serves as the diary for the Tories who now dominate British politics, and the Oxford debating club as a kind of lyceum for our current era. It is here we see the making of modern Britain in the post-Thatcher era. TheBookOfPhobiaaAndManias traces the rich and thought-provoking history in which our fixations have taken shape. A] highly entertaining, and often infuriating examination of the clique of Oxford Tories that gave us Brexit'