Boarding school boys rule Britain, at what cost? | The New Statesman podcast 

Ditto prison - there used to be a table for Old Etonians at Wormwood Scrubs.

The same was said by John Mcarthur (who was held by terrorists in Lebanon for about a year).” Having gone to Public School then I could easily tolerate my imprisonment “.

@@orangefield100 I highly recommend Brian Keenan "An Evil Cradling" (1993) about their experiences being held hostage. At one stage such was his isolation he went through a death and rebirth experience which is in the book.

Absolutely - when I went to teach in a young offenders prison, the head of education was extremely surprised to find that I was perfectly ok after a tour of the prison. I realised afterwards that it was because it did remind me of both my boarding schools.

Hi , I bought the book about 30 yrs ago when it was first published . It remains one of my most treasured possessions . Brian Keenan , writer and poet.

It's getting worse and worse since corporal punishment was banned. These are super privileged children who need to be taught a bit of humility

Met a lot of them whenI moved to BT in London in the 1980s arrogant people. Totally unacceptable.

It appears you were 💯% correct.

Me too.

In that horrible atmosphere, how could they possibly learn empathy? Damaged children make for damaged adults who damage everything they touch: companies, banks, governments.

Well said.

Yes, that's the idea.

I totally agree.

I went to boarding school and that's obviously beyond ignorant. Maybe get some experience before forming a embarrassing low capability to use critical thought.

@@gman509 hit a nerve there did we being compared to a care kid? Also if you are referring to me, I do use critical thought. I chose not to get the vaccine but I bet you did! Tell me I’m wrong? I don’t just go along with everything I am told but I bet you do! Also the above commenter has got experience so it’s you that’s ignorant. And also if you went to boarding school you should know that it is ‘an’ embarrassing and not ‘a’ embarrassing.

As a former boarding school pupil, i want to thank you for telling this story, you have restored some of the faith that was shattered. If she is still alive, tell her how much good she did her son.

well of course its still open what do you expect? actual justice? oh no not for those who have connections to the wealthy and influential dont get ahead of yourself now the clogs in the rotting machine need to still keep on going to fund their hedonistic lifestyle.

Lack of empathy is more likely.

​@@joaniesimpson2016probably both

No. They are taught to consider those not of their class as,little more than livestock. I always smile wryly when some van driver from Essex espouses that Boris is a good 'un and would go for a pint with them.

Sending you a hug Jenny

@jennyoshea1 and @sarahsue42 And here's another hug for the 6-year old in you, Jenny! And I'm reminded of a book by President Jimmy Carter's Evangelist sister (RIP), who would hold prayer sessions where she invited Jesus to accompany those present in reliving past traumas, but with His loving support & guidance bringing healing. Good luck, & blessings!

Bit nasty when rich poor kids already fostered on nanny for years.dont let private school receive charity status and stop providing child benefit to them that can afford private.private schools only place I've seen kids learn etiquette and pride in one appearance and extra curriculum so good couldn't afford otherwise.my kids had a mix and ppl always pointed how well they presented verbally n appearance.education standard at times was no better than state.

@joprocter4573 Good heavens, man (or woman): what a long run on sentence. A suggestion: separate your writing in to individual thoughts. Then assemble those distinct items into groups of similar items, and then aim to express each one a separate sentence. Good luck! And blessings.

​​@@adad1270 in today's world if you are not accepting received wisdom Google will leave out words and thoughts that make a sentence cogent, indeed that make a sentence at all. And even after your editing, change your words to make you look ignorant , or simply shadow ban and your content. The monitors make a science out of confusing homonyms. The paragraph you object to has periods but no initial caps. That may occur when Google does not give you access to a keyboard without your trying different workarounds, or insert.other characters right in front of characters HR capitalized when editing Google will also let you dictate commas or punctuation and then delete or replace correct punctuation and insert something worse. The program frequently doesn't know the difference between there, their and they're. Yeah we're supposed to be waiting for them to deliver likely lethal self-driving cars to operate in all conditions including fog and when roadway markings are covered with snow. Not everybody has the stomach for the various workarounds used to get a disagreeing comment inserted -- without it being abridged and made incoherent. The entry criticized is not one that I agree with but it seems to be opposite to the majority of comments. If you can ignore the lack of initial caps, you'll probably see sentences. Also if someone writes a comment that is too long it will quickly get shifted over to top comments where it will not likely get noticed or read. If it's really long it will earn some phrase indicating that it represents an illogical or unsubstantiated argument. You can remove the lowest paragraphs in the old fashioned newspaper inverted pyramid editing Style that was developed for typesetters using lead linotype and later used with so-called cold type

Is there a single school in the world where you won’t find the odd ‘unhappy’ 14/15 year old? Apart from girls’ schools presumably.

The only person I've met from Eton was the most obnoxious person I've ever met

@@PomuLeafEveryday I have met quite a few obnoxious people in my life. Not all went to Eton, quite a few had been to perfectly ordinary state schools.

@@charlesbruggmann7909 I coached highschool sports for years and years, these kids were at another level of "unhappy"

@@charlesbruggmann7909so now you are defending bullying?

I'm sorry to hear that. My mum was an alcoholic and having to send all her three sons to BS all of whom were unhappy at going made her worse. I never brought it up afterwards as I knew she felt guilty about it.

It is more an English tradition. There are very few boarding schools in Scotland

The Dark Triads so wicked

@@doreenhollywood7459🤣

But they never will, will they? Because if you're that type of British person who sends your offspring away to a public school, you know better don't you? The British upper class will never lose their arrogance....

At least there's very little risk of them getting shot.

What makes you think you would have been happier in a state school?

@@charlesbruggmann7909 because I had to go to State School when my parents moved to a different area for 2 years. An area where there were no Private Schools. I learnt more and was much happier there until they moved back and put me back into the Private School and misery.

I was also made to feel I was lucky and was given an opportunity my Dad hadnt had. I struggled to keep my head above water for three years and then floundered for the last two and my Dad unbeknownst to me had to persuade the school to even allow me to take A levels, which I did badly at. Neither my Dad or the school spoke to me about their deliberations until six months after my exams when my Dad spat it out while in the midst of a rant at me. His final word on the subject was "Well that was a f'in waste of money". Our relationship never really recovered although BS wasnt the only point of conflict.

@@user-mw9bd2ey6sIt was in the UK from the early 60's to the mid 70's. I started school aged 3 at a private girls school. The only qualification required was your parents had the money for the fees. Consequently there were girls of all abilities. I stayed there until I was 11 and felt ok about it, enjoyed learning and it gave me a good grounding in the 3R's and a curious attitude to learning. I started in the senior part of the school and did first year. It was challenging, the discipline was extreme, with a restricted uniform, the length of skirts checked and measured, socks and stockings checked frequently rejected, we even had to wear special regulation indoor shoes. The compulsory gabardine coat plus velvet bowler hat marked you out for ridicule out of school, if you were brave enough to try to go into town after school and not be picked up by your parents until you were 18. I then spent 2 years at a high school in a Scottish town - the only school in the town. I had freedom to walk to school myself, I was just like everyone else, the education was just as good, if not better as we learnt practical subjects like cooking, rather than Latin. Back to the Private School, no freedom, back to public ridicule, fetched and carried by parents. Subjects all very academic, no additional needs help for friends who needed it, they ended up being persuaded to leave at 16 or being held back a year, and I really felt for them. I left with great O Levels, rubbish A Levels (because by that time I had discovered boys) and no ability to look after myself, cook properly etc. You can't eat A level Physics! Nothing I learnt at school was of any great use during my life. I did make it to Uni as a Mature Student, which I loved, but Private School I just hated it. The stigma and discipline and the teachers not caring for your wellbeing (my father died when I was 17 no one ever asked if I was ok) and not celebrating what you did unless you were the Best in your class and going to University. All I can say is choose carefully.

Hope that. you are now ok . Well done for not giving in to the herd mentality.

Sounds horrific. But I dont think anybody bleated about it while at the school in fact a stiff upper lip and carrying on was all part of the ethos. Parents should have done something about it but complaining to them was also taboo.

Not everyone has the strengt that you had....be compasionate! They were children.

Broken children remoulded in the image of an "elite"

This is why many who govern can't govern!

I went to one. It was hell. Emotionally crippling.

I went to an all boys inner city comprehensive in the 1970s. At that time, one of the largest in the UK. Trust me, it was one of the most brutal, cruel and abusive institutions I have ever experienced. Long before the abolition of corporal punishment, the liberal use of which, from the torse, cane, slap or the oversized plimsoll administered with unimaginable force by the largest gym teacher, was the main form of control. And then there were the thug pupils, given more or less free reign to bully at will. 5 years of daily horror, only at the end which could my secondary education actually begin. British public schools are an abomination, but being a powerless, poor, physically average child in a 1970s state school was no joy either.

cruel and selfish people are within all classes all jobs. its a lack of faith. a nation with no sense of morality is a threat to itself. Morality is promoted in the 10 commandments which all Abrahamic faiths agree and believe in. Also creating a system of institutional accountability not blame. Would assist with the institutional corruption this country is afflicted with.

You are spot on A child needs the warmth of a care giver and these lot have had none Just money thrown at them so how will they know the lives of ordinary people

Detached emotionally starved, bullied or abused

Which begs the obvious question......Why are these very exclusive and expensive institutions called `Public Schools` when they are totally closed to the real public people? They are Private Schools and the free institutions are Public Schools for the commoner, surly! It must be a very British thing because it makes no sense what so ever!

Nonsense

Maintaining the status quo relies on problems 'not' being solved.....!!!! If a Politician comes in and solves all the problems its game over and they do think they are playing a game .....

Have Allways thought that having a Private Education, Does NOT make a person clever, intelligent, able or accomplished, it simply means they have HAD a VERY Expensive Education and been indoctrinated into the mantra that THEY are Superior to the plebs who are outside of that privilege....and should be treated as such.

Their severe lacking in many areas of knowledge (science, technology) is directly reflected in all the issues UK currently has.

More important may be the effect on judgement of the lack of emotional development.

@Pauld42 There was an interesting item on U-tube watched yesterday with Two Private school boarders, one of whom, Former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion....He said just that about Shutting down Emotional development....They both said that Public Schools formerly had a discipline Break the child to make the child FIT to be a Servant of the Empire and send them off to Rule...And nothings much changed, Except with NO Empire now....Those people are here instead!

But then their uber representation at the upper echelons of society says otherwise :)

Exactly

💯

The true ruling elite need the traumatised kids to carry out UKgovPLC policies that suppress the masses!

Plenty at the other schools by 93 / 7 & from almost all walks of life .

@dominionphilosophy3698 But public schools teach to successfully hide the socipathy under the exterior of sophistication and eccentricity

I wanted to live home age 5..i had had enough

Me too Julian

It was hard enough having problems adjusting to BS but when it just made problems at home worse then on one level being at BS was an escape from those intractable domestic problems. More likely to have love at home than BS although not a given I agree.

Your father, My mother. My mother shook me until I passed out 3 different times as an infant. She was always shaking me as a child. I always wanted to go to boarding school to get away from the abuse, but at that time, I had no idea how much abuse happened at boarding schools and how the establishment was abhorrant to stop it and was really apart of the problem until I went to a school up North that was not a boarding school, but I was bullies and the teachers had the audacity to call it love! Even the music teacher bullied me. This is when I realized that at a boarding school, I would be trading my mother for many fools with tools.

It seems to me that we are here to be the best we can be: by that I don’t mean necessarily to be what this world accepts as being a success ie rich/ powerful/ famous etc. To be the best we can be means, to me, to be a compassionate, kind, tolerant, gentle human being….to be that amongst our fellow, equally flawed brothers and sisters, is being the best we can be. If like so many of us you’ve had a rough time of it as a child, from parents or a lack of them, from school, from work or from the world at large; then you have gift that others haven’t had, you know what it’s like to feel that hurt. Turn that experience on it’s head and use your compassion in the way you live with others. There’s literally no better, wiser life you can aspire to….and the peace and joy you will feel outstrips and amount of money or power you could possibly imagine. People will scoff at this I have no doubt, and that that only proves that I am right :-) Use the experiences you’ve had for good and you’ll find the hurt you suffered will diminish like dew in the morning.

Good point....the system has bred those who seek to destroy Britain

The people in this country during Empire were also damaged by the elite.

Exactly. They exist as Spencer puts it to “cauterise the emotions”. This produces useful sociopaths.

I posted that message before the video (12:21) got to mentioning boarding schools preparing people for the church. I can trace my family back to 996, and looking at the history it seems common for the idiot son to go into the church. Now that we have become a more secular society it has been necessary to create something else for the idiot son to do, which is why Oxford create PPE.

THIS is where so many of these people who are so eager to be liked and never risk anything major to make progress possible comes from. To have your mind " frozen over" + to develop a devious aspect to your personality due to a preoccupation with avoiding punishment is shockingly awful. Pursuing success with the wrong underlying motive is a path to nothing good.

Have you read the book 'sad little men' that was published a few years ago? It might be worth a look... Edit: I was commenting before listening too. I see the author of the book I mentioned is one of the interviewees.

Sixty two here. I went to a minor regional one which was very proud to have been founded in the fifteenth century. It too was hell. And bullying was accepted. It’s emotionally damaging to children to be dumped like that. I’m definitely not… “complete”? Even after all these years. Oh, and a Labour voter too!

Thanks for the reply :-) it’s comforting to know that you’re one of many isn’t it….not that you want anyone else to have gone through that! And the fact that you are so much younger than me makes it so depressing that you had to suffer 14 years or so later than I did. There were boys in my school who went through an even worse ordeal than I did. My worst ordeals were at the hands of the headmaster. If you ever saw the film called ‘If’ where a boy get caned by a prefect who runs up and thrashes him? That happened to me 3 times: twice with 3 thrashes and once with 6 thrashes. I had blood running down the back of my legs after the worst event. Utterly wicked way to treat young boys….I think I was 13 at the time. Thing is I could never have told my parents because I’d have got the same treatment by my father who would have punished me because the headmaster had :-)

@@trevfindley5704 I haven’t read it and I’m lucky enough to have a faith that has sustained me and enabled me to forgive those who meted out such cruelty. It was an awful time though and it’s left me with a passionate belief that children need love and encouragement to grow and flourish. I am truly lucky that I was able to understand and come to terms with what happened to me and I totally get how others struggle with similar experiences or end up repeating that behaviour themselves….my father and grandfather also went through public schools but my wife and I made sure that never happened to our children.

@@tonyaustin4472 sounds like it probably wouldn't contain any huge revelations to you, but it is an excellent book - and very specific and lucid in how it apportions blame to the overbearing institutional structure of the schools themselves rather than the many and varied tyrants that each one may or may not have harboured...

Some of them ARE "survivors"...truely some of them endured horrors.These men are simply sharing their experiences,they are not trying to justify or say its OK we have such elite schools that privilege few in society. Some of them endured unimaginable horros that you would not wish on anyone...horroric abuses of every single kind,abandoned by parents and left to fend for themselves often in harsh unloving environments.

@@upendasana7857 Nah. They’re fine.

Hyperbole on steroids!

I say old chap, steady on

'Politically immature" and senescent at the same time, what a combination

On the contrary, the 'working class' have challenged authority over centuries, which is why the English had rights early not found elsewhere. Slavery and Serfdom disappeared early. The Peasants Revolt, the political movements of the Levellers, Diggers, Chartists, the Labour movement. No bloody revolution like Russia or France, the development of constitutional monarchy, which turn out to be one of the most stable forms of government, and avoiding extremity in political movements such as Fascism and Communism and the horrors that unleashed globally. Do you see those political movements and oppression as 'politically mature'?

Not true about the dropping of the De, Du Van and Von on the continent. There are plenty of old aristocratic families around.

And most ironically, Mrs Thatcher was one of those Tories who seemed to have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. She and her followers then made it harder for others to do ßo.

@user-pu5tc8tg4x So right. Send one daughter through that system - haven't seen or heard from her for 24 years since !!! Does not want to know me.

Might I remind you that Liz Truss did not go to Eton. She didn’t go to boarding school. She wasn’t privately educated.

​​@@charlesbruggmann7909she fit right in though - I guess prep schools aren't the only source of entitled idiots, but regardless of source,we should stop electing them!

@@charlesbruggmann7909 True but she did go to Oxford

@@mandriod5255 exactly. Oxford PPE is an extension of this exact system. Also - most of the think tank gouls who dictated her policies were bound to have been privately educated...

Eton mess!

.... & also playing fields or play grounds of other schools .

No it was destroyed on the windrush

Hare coursing? That’s not posh people sport.

Because we’re gaslighted by them

I know. It’s fucking amazing.

@@mandriod5255the establishment media are messed into it.

The English love cap doffing. This is also ingrained by royalty and the class system. I hate this about this country.

@@webMonkey_ They will never learn.

Emphasis on the classics instead of maths and physics explains the dire ignorance in Westminster.

Not these days. But everyone knows the money is not in Science and Engineering it’s in Banking and Finance.

What’s this got to do with the Monarchy?

I've always found the English need for a stratified society interesting, and the fact that millions of plebs happily look up to and abase themselves to their 'betters' puzzles me. Even the language that has evolved and never been dropped is ridiculous, when you think about it: people are 'majestic, majesties' for example. What was majestic about your late Queen (or her son)? A very ordinary little woman, and now a very ordinary little man are majestic? A duke is 'your grace', however lacking in grace he may be. The most dishonourable people are honourable? A nation clinging to past glories needs to finally grow up and accept the new realities.

Well we can see in goverment

You shouldn’t take that simplistic attitude…there are lots of folk who went to public schools came through it with a utter determination to treat children for the treasured blessing they are. It made me a lifelong socialist and I’ve been a Labour supporter my whole adult life. It’s not where the child was sent; it’s how the adult behaves that counts.

Lot of labor luvvies went to elite schools

​@@elliotoliver8679Why call them 'luvvies'?

Just a guy who needs to learn more about life…and apparently how to spell too :-)

What a dope you are

If they had abandoned this kind of school system decades ago, you are probably right we would not have had a brexit ...because we would more than likely not have joined the european union in the first place!

Eh? All those Sunderland Toyota workers went to boarding school then?

This. They will revert back in terms of economic growth and so many other things too if they continue this feudalist trend.

I agree with you. Another benefit of withdrawing taxpayer funding from non government schools would be the ending of the physical isolation of children from different religious backgrounds from each other. I've been reading about what is taught (indoctrinated?) in some Muslim schools in Britain and elsewhere. If the Catholics, Jews and others suffer financially from a tightening of the public money supply they currently enjoy, so be it. The government needs to be much stricter in enforcing the national curriculum and religious studies should be monitored closely to ban the teaching of fundamentalism.

Yes, because state schools are doing such a good job producing wonderful children who grow to be great human beings themselves😑😑

Written by Roger (Pomfret) Hodgson, who did go to private school, interestingly enough.

Which school?

@@StGammon77 eton collage windsor it costs at the moment over 46K per year per pupil

Yeah, I absolutely cannot make sense of the contempt for grammar schools. There are certainly some problems with them: The ability of wealthy families to buy their way into the catchment area. The blunt instrument of branding a child based on a one-dimensional score at a young age. But the solution to these problems is not just _"Shut them all down"._

I think the person who changed most grammars to comprehensives was Margaret Thatcher during her tenure as education secretary.

​@@andybrice2711The case against grammar schools is absolutely rock solid. They entrench privilege and shut off social mobility. The evidence is simply irrifutable.

Parental pressure is it's own thing, of course. I went to a state school, but I do recall hearing a conversation between a head of department and new teacher in advance of a parent's night along the lines of "you'll not hear parents asking why their children have so much homework, you'll get asked why they've got so little".

I have no opinion about grammar schools, having grown up in a very egalitarian country, but the rest of your post is great and tallies with what I experienced when meeting public school alumni.

Not necessarily.

Sadly, many have a charitable status! Tax dodging…..

Boarding schools will become the preserve of the uneducated nouveau riche . Bring back the grammar schools .

It certainly suits some personality types. Others are hurt by it.

​@@TesterAnimal1 I'm not sure public success is any indicator of private contentment

Unfortunately child neglect, brutality and abuse happened in all societies in UK and Ireland back in the day... Catholic Church in Ireland is another example.

You Fenians got touched up by priests. Explains a whole lot.

Obvious troll is obvious.

I know the Jesuits and Benedictine’s were only following the English model in Ireland and that the French and German provinces of those orders are pioneers of liberal progressive education - but Belvedere, Clongowes, Glenstal etc are carbon copies of Stonyhurst and Ampleforth - themselves just romanised versions of Eton and Westminster. There’s a lot of decolonisation Ireland hasn’t done, at least possibly because of the ongoing influence of those schools

@@Joe-og6br never did and I am not a fenian

Benefited - one t.

@@macsmiffy2197 True - and I used to pride myself on my spelling :(

Maybe you were lucky in the choice of school. Did it help you get on in.life, do yoh think?

Well good for you, top dog. I fucking HATED it and am emotionally fucked.

@@patcampton7163 It is difficult to say but it put me on a track that was totally beyond the experience of family and friends.Maybe that would have happened anyway.

I rage more about Grammar Schools tbh.

My brother got a scholarship to Oundle in the 1960s. My mum and dad decided not to send him because they'd miss him, he'd miss home, and they felt me and my brother would miss him too. It sounds as though he dodged a bullet. Hope you're ok x

I managed to get out and am absolutely fine, many others are not. Many, many incidents are hidden from view, the reputation of the school must be protected at all cost. The Worshipful Company of Grocers, (the governing body), has long tendrils and complaints and appeals are not visible, as they should be. Your parents made the right decision. @@nicolab2075

@@anselmcarr-jones1664They’d do a far better job at improving the lives of normal people - pretty much all of us except the upper and upper middle classes who benefit from our oligarchic, feudalistic system - if they embrace entrepreneurship, reduce regulatory burdens, cut the tax imposed on those who work and, instead, zealously tax the parasitic concentration of wealth among fewer and fewer people at the top, and have the courage to reform the NHS. We are not talking about something like the broken system in America, but perhaps something like what they have in South Korea. The NHS needs reform, not ideological, blind support.

Ambition and desire for the child to be of the upper division in terms of material wealth

​@@lulamidgeable Also, perhaps, a lack of empathy engendered by their own experience in childhood...

So they mix with People Like Us.

Because it appears better than being a peasant, it can guarantee status position and money.

Good idea because: if a lot of kids currently in public schools go to state schools, there might not be enough facilities. Nonetheless, these schools have been exposed and must now change.

@@annepoitrineau5650 Yeah, a parent sending a child to a private school is essentially saving taxpayers £8,000. So we shouldn’t want to price them out of that completely, or it will be a net loss. Plus it would be unfair to force children to change schools. And to penalize upper middle-class people more than the very rich.

Boarding sixth form, then.

He’s obnoxious.

I think it may depend on the time frame too. Your experience sounds like something I would guess happened in the last 10 -15 years? I don't think it would have gone so well for anyone who did that during the 90s or earlier...

With all due respect, Stamford isn't Eton.

There is a big difference going at 16, when the worst of the bullying has died down, and going at 8 for the majority of your childhood