65 years of Tory Prime Ministers – their educational backgrounds
And EVERY LAB winner of a general election majority winner went to Oxford
One of my little obsessions over the years has been the very narrow base from which political leaders come from in the UK. The table above shows the educational backgrounds of every Tory PM since Churchill stood aside in 1955 and as can be seen all but one of them went to Oxford – the exception being John Major who did not go to university.
Labour doesn’t do any better. Only three leaders have ever led their party to general election majorities and all of them went to Oxford. There was Attlee at GE1945 and GE1950, Wilson GE1964, GE1966, GE1974 Oct and of course Tony Blair at GE1997, GE2001 and GE2005.
Keir Starmer went to Leeds University but did a post-grad degree at Oxford.
Non-Grad James Callaghan lost to the Tories at GE1979. Gordon Brown who was LAB leader from 2007-2010 did not go to Oxford but never won a general election.
The extraordinary thing is that the last CON PM who didn’t go to Oxford was Baldwin at GE1935. The nearest the light blues have got to Number 10 in recent times was Cambridge grad Michael Howard who lost to Tony Blair at GE2005.
Will this trend continue?