Tony Benn:

That is what the Prince of Wales meant when he warned that education was threatening this hierarchy by raising expectations among his future subjects which could lead to them becoming too confident, even questioning why he should be king and why they should be required to bow and scrape to everyone above them in the social system.

As always, Anthony Wedgewood-Benn manages to graps the wrong end of the stick and then use it as a rant to decry the fact that we are not, in fact, a Socialist People’s Republic. Charlie boy tried to point out that the education system fails to teach people that they have to have either ability or work hard, possibly even a combination, if they were to rise. Not that people could not or should not rise.
Still, an interesting comment, that British society does not allow social mobility, from the grandson of a Baronet, the son of a Viscount, one who was a Viscount himself for a short period, the inheritor of a publishing fortune, married into another, American, fortune, a third generation MP and father of a fourth. I’m also looking forward to what happens after his death (no, not to his death at all, but to what will happen afterwards) for our Tone renounced his title of 2nd Viscount Stansgate. That does not mean that the title is abolished, rather that it is in abeyance for his lifetime. His son ( I think Hilary Benn is his oldest son and now an MP and Minister) will have to decide whether to renounce it himself or not upon his father’s death. Could be interesting…although of course being a Viscount now does not mean that you have to leave the Commons.