‘Silicon Glen’ Rather Than Dingley Dell
I was interested to read your article about social patterns in Britain, “In Britain, Social Class Still Counts.” I should like, however, to offer some balancing comment.
First, one’s social background is no longer a key to career success. In the Civil Service, the major professions, industry, commerce and of course politics, advancement prospects are based on qualifications and merit.
Second, although the article calls into question the quality of Britain’s senior corporate executives, it is in fact those same executives who are leading the country’s economic revival. Output is at an all-time high; the proportion of the working-age population currently in employment is higher than in nearly all other industrialized countries, and company profitability and total investment are at record levels. Profits of British firms in the first quarter of 1985, for example, were 25% higher than in the corresponding period last year. Somebody must be doing something right!
Third, the secondary education system has long been standardized (and to a greater extent than is apparent from the article), and university entrance depends only on examination results. And, contrary to the impression given, “public” schools (actually private schools with public boards of governors) award significant numbers of scholarships; and among them are the three schools mentioned by Tuohy. It might also be noted that Oxford and Cambridge are as famous for their achievements in the fields of science and technology as for those in the humanities: one need think only of Rutherford’s splitting of the atom at Cambridge’s Cavendish laboratory in 1919.
Finally, the image of Scotland and the north of England as regions ravaged by high unemployment and industrial disputes is selective at best. Unemployment is high, and we have just emerged from a major coal strike, but the article ignores the success of such areas as “Silicon Glen” in central Scotland, where American and other offshore electronics firms continue to locate in increasing numbers and with very impressive results. It also takes no account of the progress achieved in towns like Consett in the Newcastle area where, despite the closure of a steel works that had been the town’s principal employer, enough entrepreneurial small business concerns have since sprung up to justify the construction of the third in a series of new industrial parks.
In areas such as these, the supposed “threat to social cohesiveness” cited by your correspondent has been met head-on and overcome. And in the new industries, which are gradually replacing the old, the record of industrial relations is excellent. Indeed, the number of strikes so far this year in Britain as a whole has been the lowest in 50 years. While certain “class distinctions” may persist to some extent, there is thus no evidence here that they are having a debilitating effect on Britain’s current industrial performance.
E.D. O’MAHONEY
Los Angeles
O’Mahony is acting consul general in Los Angeles.
