The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)

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element in
the British class system. Manual workers are early school leavers.
Those who continue their education after
the age of sixteen become white-collar
workers. However white-collar workers are divided into clerical,
managerial and
professional sections. Again education plays an important part in bringing about
such
sub-division. Among those 15% who stay at school after their primary
studies, only 4 or 5% find their way
into universities. Oxford and Cambridge,
which are also crucial mechanisms for integration of the elite, take
only about
one-eighth of the total student population. On the other hand, public schools
superimpose a
further distinction in the class system which is no less important.
“The public schools have greater
academic-particularly scientific – facilities.
Boys are taught and educated on a more individual
basis.”24 Most of the boys who
go to the best public schools are
sons who belong to the upper strata of the society
and to the aristocracy. If public schools have not been
successful in giving
attitudes to their alumni at least they have been successful in shaping a
socially
integrated elite by giving them contacts. These contacts facilitate their careers and
enable
them to have more influence in the posts which they eventually occupy.

Those who
go to public schools such as Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby,
Charterhouse, Marlborough and later to Oxford
and Cambridge occupy positions
in the monopoly sector of the economy, such as large companies, banks
and
insurance firms in the City, in Parliament, Government, the military and para-
military forces, and
the Civil Service, in the Church and the legal profession and
in the various bodies and agencies which bridge
the gap between the state and the
economy.

“As
the analysis of C.S.Wilson and T.Lupton in 1959 shows, Eton alone
produces 30% of the Conservative ministers,
of the directors of large banks, of
the directors of the City firms, of the directors of the insurance
companies.”25
Eton, and five other public schools that have been
mentioned, produce between
two-fifths and a half of the holders of these posts. For example, the 30% or so
of

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