So much for a classless society!

I was prompted to write about this by Crux-Of-The-Matter's post about the classism and deference encountered while in England.

Academics usually lean left, and New Labour with its social engineering schemes can provide a perfect tool for any crazy idea of perfect society to be experimented with the entire British populace as unwitting guinea pigs. The recent outbursts of classism from Newcastle University's Bruce Charlton, however, go against the tide and the wrong way (I wonder how that's possible).

According to Dr Charlton students from working-class backgrounds have inherently lower IQ's than their higher-class counterparts, therefore higher uni intake from more expensive or more prestigious schools is therefore just a natural consequence of meritocracy. Being no believer in affirmative action I am, however, also no believer in social class as a valid defining characteristic of human nature. A factory worker can exhibit more elegance, wit, wisdom and intelligence than a snobbish toff, given the chance. The principle of meritocracy can be made to work without the needs for quota and target tinkering by improving the standards and quality in the education system. Labour on this record have consistently proven themselves as incompetent as on defence policy in the 1980's.

Dr Charlton's comments are not only an indictment of his own narrow-mindedness and snobbery, but of Labour's failure to bring down the notion of class as a caste, as well as the failure to create a public education system that enabled disadvantaged children to succeed through their own efforts and motivation rather than by government-dictated quota mathematics. To sadden it all, Newcastle upon Tyne is a ridiculously Labour area (judging by 2005 election results). For such classism to come from a bastion of New Labour - the champions of a classless society - is truly disheartening.

It's not the class, it's what we do with it that counts.