A Different Class

No one on This Week challenged the assertion by Andrew Neil that David Cameron was the first privately schooled Tory Leader since Alec Douglas-Home. But in reality, Margaret Thatcher did not come from a humble background, unless you are comparing it to that of David Cameron or George Osborne. By that measure, even the Royal Family are just nouveaux riches immigrants. Thatcher’s father was a prominent local businessman and politician who ran most of the committees and charities for miles around. He sent her to a fee-paying school (it isn’t now, but it was then), and then put her through Oxford without scholarship. She was born into the upper middle class, married within it, and devoted her political life to its supremacy both over the lower orders and over toffs.