Graun (re)discovers elitism -- more widely spread than they thought

The Graun is among those complaining that the election of a new Tory leaders and thus PM by a small constituency of Tory members was unspeakably elitist in this day and age, although this is the first time they have complained about the system -- I wonder why. The echoing silence about the other elites in the country was filled a bit today with their revelation that 

Britain’s top jobs still in hands of private school elite, study finds

a tiny elite of privately educated people, many of whom went to Oxbridge, continue to dominate high-ranking jobs, where 39% had an independent education, compared with 7% of the general population. Critics described the figures as “scandalous” and called for urgent change.

Revealingly:

39% of the cabinet (at the time the analysis was carried out) went to fee-paying schools compared with 9% of the shadow cabinet – down from 22% during Ed Miliband’s reign as Labour leader – while 29% of the 2017 intake of MPs were privately educated....In the media, 43% of the 100 most influential news editors and broadcasters, and 44% of newspaper columnists went to fee-paying schools; 33% of those went to both private school and either Oxford or Cambridge....“These scandalous figures show that the UK is far from being a meritocracy..."

Implications for all those boasts about press and Parliament speaking in the name of national interests? None. Doesn't stop P Toynbee:

The Tory party’s hardcore membership would head us off a cliff. We need to rebel against this democratic outrage

 our fate [is] fixed by the votes of a tiny self-selecting oligarchy....The Sutton Trust and Social Mobility Commission’s report [the one above] lands today with perfect timing, showing that private schooling and Oxbridge still govern every British commanding height. How apt, with a “choice” between an Etonian ex-president of the Oxford Union or an admiral’s son, head boy of Charterhouse and president of the Oxford University Conservative Association....70% are men, 97% white, 60% southern, 86% higher social classes, average age 57, a high proportion no longer in work. Six out of 10 want the death penalty back. These are oddballs.

So what of the even odder and narrower elites that dominate her profession and the Remainer Parliament? Or those that make up the EC?  Will she generalise the debate? Nearly:

Both [Tory candidates] are so sociologically and ideologically similar that “character” is the only cigarette paper between them...They are not Britain...

We can move on to the real issue for Toynbee, the real problem with elitism:

... members’ Brexit position has hardened considerably since 2015, reinforced by 30,000 new hard leavers. Here’s the crunch: 84% are opposed to a referendum and two-thirds are for leaving the EU with no deal – ready to sacrifice the union, the economy and their own party. Out in the real world, only a quarter of voters want a no-deal Brexit. For more than 18 months YouGov founder Peter Kellner has recorded a majority who now think the referendum result was wrong. For a year there has been an eight-point lead for remain, among all polls. This has become a remain-majority country.  

Toynbee calls for fighting in the streets -- well, more motions for the Labour Conference:

Where is the rebellion against this democratic outrage?...Each day more phoney “solutions” to the Tories’ Brexit dead end pour out: Labour should be out there knocking them down like skittles....How profoundly depressing that Corbyn-backing Momentum has proposed 10 conference motions but not a single one refers to Brexit....