Polly Wanna Cracker.

Polly Toynbeee in today's Guardian. It doesn't look too bad at first glance, talking about how social mobility seems to have nearly stopped in the UK. It may even be true, I haven't seen the details of the statistics that she quotes (always a necessary duty before accepting a Grauniad columnist's word). However, applying a little history to her thesis brings up something different:

The great surge of upward social mobility of the 50s and 60s didn't last. Two studies of cohorts of children show how many of those born in 1958 ended up in jobs far better than their fathers', but by the time those born in 1970 grew up, their prospects were almost static. Now, according to Cabinet Office figures, a child in the bottom social classes is 15 times less likely to become middle class than a children already born into a middle-class family.

Just for the sake of argument, assume that the above is true.
Now, is there anything that could explain this? An over-riding event that might have choked off what social mobility there was?
Lessee. RAB Butler's 1944 Education Act (which she mentions) set up a dual level education system. Grammar Schools and Secondary Moderns. One for the 10 -20 % of the population that was academically minded, subject to strict and rigorous examinations, one for those with a more vocational bent. Children were tested at 11 years old (the "11 plus" exam) and sorted into the academic sheep and goats.
OK, now this may or may not have been a good thing, perhaps the whole system should have been more integrated, less divisive.
This system started to come apart in the mid-1960's (the Education Minister in Wilson's Government, I think it was Crossland, once stated that he wanted to close every fucking grammar school in the country) and by 1980 almost all secondary education in the country was "Comprehensive" (there are still a few holdouts in certain counties), that is no streaming by academic aptitude, a one size fits all solution. Have a look at the age cohorts she mentions: those born in 1970 would be reaching secondary education just after 1980.
So, the fact appears to be that the era of streamed education allowed (caused?) greater social mobility than the era of inclusive, socially egalitarian education.
Don't you think that would be an interesting point to make for someone who values that mobility? Someone who, in her article, rightly points to the role of education in such mobility?
Amazingly, no, she doesn't mention it at all.
There is a reason of course. Polly believes in comprehensive education you see, and we cannot allow facts or outcomes to interfere with the glowing sense of righteousness that comes from supporting an unjugdmental, inclusive, socially responsible system of schooling. Even if the results are exactly what you wish to rail against.

An email was sent to Ms. Toynbee. Any response will be posted:

Dear Ms Toynbee,
Your article today appears to me to have one huge gap, an unmentioned elephant in the bedroom.
Those periods you mention with relatively high social mobility were the days of Grammar Schools, Secondary Moderns and the 11 plus. The latter years with decreased mobility were exactly those in which Comprehensive Schools became the norm.
It is almost as if the facts are telling us that there is a choice to be made: divisive schooling and increased social mobility or a more non-judgmental education system and less social mobility.
Which, I wonder, of these choices would you plump for, now that you have so ably deployed the statistics to show that it is indeed a choice that has to be made?

Update: Polly's response:

But the facts on grammars tell the opposite story. They were almost entiely
middle class, with a handful of lucky poor kids (many more boys, few girls
places). It helped a few up, but kept many down. Many more go to university
now via the comprehensive system. I was at one of the first comprehensives
- the time of maximum upward mobility

And me back to her:

Thanks for the response. I have to admit I don't really understand it. If "one of the first comprehensives" provided the time of maximum social mobility that would seem to imply that when the system was overwhelmingly grammar/sec mod was the time of maximum social mobility. Further, the meat of your piece this morning seemed to be that there are no "lucky poor kids" now as opposed to those few there were.
Confusing.
That "many more go to university now" is true, as the target for such has risen from 10-15% of the population to 50%. Yet as you state this seems not to have increased social mobility. Again, confusing.

Update 2. What Polly says above is true, that she was at one of the first comprehensives and that it was indeed a time of social mobility. Perhaps I'm being a little sensitive if I think that there is also an imputation that she herself benefitted from that mobility. This would of course be completely false (so I must indeed be too sensitive to see the imputation). Polly's background:

Toynbee is a daughter of the literary critic Philip Toynbee (by his 1st wife), and granddaughter of the historian Arnold J. Toynbee (d. 1975). Through her paternal grandmother Rosalind Toynbee, nee Murray (eldest daughter of the classicist Gilbert Murray), she is a descendant of the 9th Earl of Carlisle. She thus has a distinguished academic and aristocratic descent.
Her descent is as follows: 9th Earl of Carlisle -> Lady Mary Murray md Gilbert A. Murray, Regius Professor of Classics -> Rosalind Murray md (div) Arnold J. Toynbee, historian -> Philip Toynbee, literary critic -> Polly Toynbee, journalist Polly Toynbee was married to the late Peter Jenkins, also a journalist.

Well, actually, on second thoughts, perhaps she is an example of social mobility. For of course it works both ways, and there are certainly those who would think that for the scion of the above line to be a Grauniad hack an apt description might be downward mobility. Slumming even.