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Chums

How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK

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Chums

By: Simon Kuper
Narrated by: Mark Elstob
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A damning look at the university clique-turned-Commons majority that will blow the doors of Westminster wide open and change the way you look at our democracy forever.
Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May, Dominic Cummings, Jacob Rees-Mogg: Whitehall is swarming with old Oxonians. They debated each other in tutorials, ran against each other in student elections, and attended the same balls and black tie dinners. They aren't just colleagues - they are peers, rivals, friends. And, when they walked out of the world of student debates onto the national stage, they brought their university politics with them. Eleven of the fifteen postwar British prime ministers went to Oxford. In Chums, Simon Kuper traces how the rarefied and privileged atmosphere of this narrowest of talent pools - and the friendships and worldviews it created - shaped modern Britain.
“'A searing onslaught on the smirking Oxford insinuation that politics is all just a game. It isn't. It matters” -MATTHEW PARRIS©2022 Simon Kuper (P)2022 W. F. Howes Ltd Corruption & Misconduct Politicians Politics & Activism Politics & Government Thought-Provoking Inspiring
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A really good listen that delves into the personal upbringing of so many of the current policitical class that passed through Oxford in the 1980s and 90s and how the experience shaped them.

Well narrated and really interesting. Highly recommend.

Astonishing

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What you have long suspected is expressed clearly and concisely in this book: how a tiny group of expensively educated Toffs hand power and privilege to each other, while essentially looking down on the rest of us. Wake up, Britain! Let’s not be taken in again at the next election. Get yourself informed and give your vote to someone ethically and morally superior, someone who genuinely cares about the people of this country. 😀

Uncomfortable truths ☺️

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For someone who didn't know about the British educational system and its connection with the commons this book is very interesting. Equally is interesting one of the roots of Brexit.

Entertaining and enlightening

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As a clever grammar school sixth-former, I was misled into sitting the Oxford entrance examination in 1968; spending the following three years studying languages at one of the smaller colleges. Half a century later, I find it impossible to give an articulate, considered account of my university experience. If asked, I can only affirm, exclaim or blurt out: "I hated the place."

Simon Kuper's searching and satirical book is for me an enjoyable exercise in truth-telling. It resurrected the reality of the three most pointless, lonely and unutterably miserable of my 72 years of life. I find I cannot write a review as such. I can only reiterate: I hated Oxford. I hate hate hate hate it.

HATE it

Devastatingly accurate

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A particularly surreal experience to read while attending Oxford as a postgraduate. Genuinely insightful into the character of Britain, Oxford and the current ruling caste.

Insightful

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