James Bloodworth wrote about the Sutton Trust candidates’ research at the Left Foot Forward blog.

In a capitalist economy wealth tends to grow faster than economic output, as French economist Thomas Piketty noted in his best-selling book Capital in the 21st Century. Or put another way, the more money you have the easier it is to make lots more of it. During periods of slow economic growth this leaves those unfortunate enough to be asset poor clinging to the coat tails of the capital-rich.

But it isn’t only wealth that concentrates; opportunity does too, as is evidenced by the gilded nature of the upper echelons of British society. This occurs for the simple reason that the privileges of the parents tend to become the privileges of the children. To quote Piketty’s predecessor Karl Marx, “Men make their own circumstances… but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.”

Nowhere is this more apparent than in British politics. According to new research by the Sutton Trust, almost a third (31 per cent) of parliamentary candidates in winnable seats attended fee-paying schools. Meanwhile 55 per cent of candidates went to elite Russell Group universities, with 19 per cent attending either Oxford or Cambridge.

Read his full piece here

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