"Julian Fowler" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 13:46:08 +0100, "IMM" wrote:


"Julian Fowler" wrote in message
.. .

Most British uni's have been established
since WW2. We have approx 100 of
them.

Being British, naturally petty snobbery comes
in, and those unis who are older say they are
better in some way, with nothing to base this
absurd claim on.

Of course ... as long as you regard things
like Nobel Prizes as being "nothing".

They are pretty meaningless you are right.
BTW, Birmingham uni perfected RADAR in
WW2 and Manchester the computer after WW2,

Not sure about "perfected", but both institutions
made vital contributions to those technologies.
Fine universities, then and now.

What!! Manchester virtually alone developed the computer as we know it
today, called the Manchester Mk 1.

Also Liverpool uni invented radio with the first outside broadcast from the
tower of the redbrick building to the roof of Lewis's store. All essential
inventions that helped change the world. Yet snotty uni's still look down
on them.

the snotties were too
interested in teaching Ancient Greek.

... as well as the odd spot of research
in fundamentals of nuclear physics (Rutherford),
molecular biololgy (Crick & Watson), amongst
many others.

The "ancient" uni's,

They may be ancient, but that are not "uni's".
The word is "university".

uni in the trade me dear boy.

... and what "trade" would that be? Clearly one with a limited
command of the English language!

that pre-date redbricks, think they are superior in
perverse way way.

"Perverse"? As in "provide superlative facilities for undergraduate
education together with world-class research facilities"??

So do others.

I never said that they didn't. Doesn't change
the fact that the most recent (2001) independent
assessment of research in UK universities
ranks Cambridge and Oxford #1 and #2
respectively (the Universities of Manchester
and Birmingham, which you cited above, are
ranked at #4 and #5).

They are well funded, over funded by government in that they have one to one
tuition. If every other uni had one to one tuition they would outstrip
these anachronisms. It has been argued that Oxbridge underperforms to the
level of funding.

Predominantly Oxbridge has become
a clique of privately educated people,
who later in life only give jobs to those
who go to certain private schools and
went to Oxbridge.

"Has become"?

You are right. It should have been "always was".

... here we go ... I see a Paxman quote coming up ...

You read ahead didn't you?

This might have been
a true statement about Oxford and
Cambridge 40-50 years ago, but
is really not the case any more.

How naive. Read Jeremy Paxman's book.
Most top jobs in this country are
filled with public school/Oxbridge.

Has it ever occured to you that this
(even though its only partially
true) might actually be a good thing?

You are having a laugh of course. No one with common sense or an ounce of
objectivity would conclude such a thing.

Would you rather that we went
down the US route such that having
money is the *only* criterion for
success in public life, and that to
be a member of a "liberal
intellectual elite" is to be denigrated
by the popular media?

Not ideal but far better than the class impregnated system of the British.
Compared to the USA, the US does not have a class system.

Or, that we continue the Thatcher-Blair tradition in
which decisions are made purely on
the basis of tabloid headlines and focus groups?

Grow up please. Thatcher promised a meritocracy. Paxman does point out
that those at the top of the gravy train: Oxbridge dons, judiciary,
mandarins, top military etc, were crapping themselves. She introduce the
odd non Oxbridge person here and there, but failed. The infiltration of
public school/Oxbridge into the UK corridors of power after she left was
hardly dented.

He points all this out.

Paxman's book is interesting, although there's
nothing new in what he writes, and his writing
style is certainly inferior to his interviewing.

He is the first to really look at who run the UK, and who are the greatest
benefactors. A clique of people who ran the UK for centuries will not let go
of power to the detriment of the people as a whole. It has to be forced from
them. Blair has kicked out the hereditories from the Lords, a great
achievement, and hopefully the thin edge of the wedge. They are making a
half hearted attempt to reduce the 50% intake to Oxbridge of privately
educated school kids, which is something but hardly enough. The real way is
to stop it at the top job recruiting stage. Currently a recruitment panel
full of public schoolie/Oxbridge's will naturally pick their own type in
accent, type of school etc. This has to stop.

In any case, in today's job market the
importance of the source (and
subject, and grade) of degree diminishes
rapidly - outside of graduate recruitment,
employers look for practical and successful
experience, skills, and knowledge rather
than baseline academic qualifications.

As a general case yes you are right in
the real world. At the top, where
power is, it is very different. In certain key
jobs in the judiciary, foreign office, Whitehall,
top staff of the military, it is nearly all
public school/Oxbridge with the odd non
public school kid thrown in, who are
usually far brighter than the rest, as to
be accepted into thre clan you
have to be brilliant; they can all be public
school buffoons as long as they
went to the right school and have a silly
puff like arcccent.

Undoubtedly true of some public schools
(those where an ability to pay very high fees
is the only entry qualificiation). Sorry to burst your
Oxbridge balloon, though - it is decades since
those universities chose to (or were able) to
admit students on any criterion other than
academic excellence -- even though both have
fallen into the trap of bad PR over the methods
that they use to select amongst equally-qualified
school leavers (given that A-levels no longer
distinguish the exceptional).

There are enough accademically bright kids from normal backgrunds, yet they
never make it past the interview as working class accent is heard. "Won't
fit in", one recuitment admin man from an Oxford collage once said to me.
Another said we only take the "best grades". I said "why is it that you
have a course wich may be one A and 2 Bs in "A" levels and you only take the
straight As?. Why don't you then say three As?".

What they were doing was listing all the applicants with 1 A and 2 Bs. Then
short listing all those with 3 As, then those with 2 As and one b, etc.
Then they would take off the top of the list the interview canidates. I
said once you have all applicant with minimum of 1 A and 2 Bs, then
accademic makes are then irelevant. They are all equal. Then the
interviewers should not be aware of what grades the candidates had and take
it from that point. After all anyone with 1 A and 2 Bs can cope with the
course. He never answered.

In the military it may be certain public
schools and then straight into a certain
snotty usless chocolate soldier regiment.

I'd like to you say that to the face of
any current or former member
of the Army who has served in Iraq, or
Bosnia, or N Ireland,

Most would agree with me. As most are normal people who are barred from the
top because the inbreeds run the military. Large land owning families tend
to have a member in the military top brass, to ensure the status quo. Any
messing about with their land owning gravy train may result in a military
coup. Wilson wanted to sort out the land problem but was curtailed by
rumours of coups. Tony Benn said Wilson regularly rang hi in the 1960/70s
with rumours of coups. The Mountbatten/Zuckerman attempt at drumming up a
coup is well documented.

or ... Which "chocolate
solder regiment(s)" were you specifically referring
to?

Any that protect the Queen. The only real proper fighting regiment we have
is the paras. They are dedicated to killing the enemy and proper
soldiering. Marching up and down with silly hats on is something they would
never do in a million years and look down on. Their record in fighting is
second to none (they did not surrender at Arnhem and only surrendered when
out of ammunition). They were created in WW2, out of a conscripted people's
army, to fight Germans, not keep an anachronism in power.

It appears to them that the rest of
us are not really intelligent enough to
do these jobs.

Do tell us, then, what your qualifications
are for a top position in
the civil service or the judiciary ...

I don't want a job in those fields. The point is that if I did I wouldn't
have a chance in hell, no matter how bright I was as I never went to a silly
public school or Oxbridge. Those essential roles are reserved for the Nice
Butt-Dims. BTW, the Sunday Times, under Andrew Neal had a campaign in the
early 1990s to rid the judiciary of the public school dominance. A picture
gallery and their backgrounds was printed. Little has changed.

It is clear that if the UK was a proper meritocracy and the land problem was
addressed the UK people would be the richest in the world. We carry a
millstone around our necks.



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