The Independent British Mind

What do the following men and women have in common?

David Cameron, Tony Blair, Tessa Jowell, Charles Clarke, Ruth Kelly, George Osborne, Andrew Marr, Michael Grade, Richard Branson, Martha Lane Fox, Guy Ritchie, Hugh Grant, and Richard Curtis.

Yes, that's right: They are talented, successful, resourceful, resilient, independent of mind, capable of making it in a hard tough world, and above all, educated.

Let me ask a question. If you put that lot on a desert island, would there be endless weepy tears, feeble recriminations about evil parents, tales of lost lives as drugged-up teenagers, and bitter memories about relationships lost? No. They would get on with it. They would scavenge, they would build, and they would survive, no matter how harsh the environment or how tough the challenges faced. Within a couple of years, after completing an all-weather village complete with cocktails and jacuzzis, they would probably have a small movie industry going, ready to take on Hollywood after their rescue, which they would bring about through technological innovation, hot air balloons, and graft.

Oh yes, and another thing. They all went to private schools free of the dead collectivist hand of government. The freer the school, the freer the mind, and the more successful the individual is in life. It is a disgrace that many of the above promote the mind-deadening effects of state education; these hypocrites should sit back and ask themselves why they are in a position to do so and why their state-educated peers are not in their position.

And then they should decide to give everyone the same opportunity they had by getting the odious British government out of the business of ruining young free minds.

The state education system should be privatized, immediately.