Sayeeda Warsi: Fighting the class war

It takes a brave woman already isolated within her party to state some uncomfortable truths. Last night Baroness Sayeeda Warsi stepped into the bitter debate about elitism with the Conservative party commenting on the Education Secretary Michael Gove weekend interview remark that the Prime Minister was surrounded by his old Etonian friends, Warsi claimed that Gove had a point.

On the ITV programme Agenda, last night holding up a spoof front page with the headline 'No 10 takes Eton mess off the menu', with pictures of old Etonians including the PM, the Chancellor George Osborne, Boris Johnson and Oliver Letwin, Warsi was clear that the class diviide within the party and society had to be dealth with. When asked if Gove had any merit she replied that:

It can’t be right that the 7 per cent of kids who go to independent school end up at the top tables, not just of politics, but banking, law, and every other profession.”

Perhaps the difference between Gove making these statements and Sayeeda Warsi, is that Gove has not so secret ambitions to become the leader of the Conservative Party and he's therefore trying to distinguish himself as different from that elite group. Warsi, in contrast has no such ambitions. She is a working class northern Muslim who believes in her party but also that the Conservatives like other significant civic, business and political institutions should be more inclusive and with greater representation from all walks of British society, not just the 7% highly privileged class.

Simon Woolley