Do the English just love a Toff?

Lowland1

Member
Mixed Farmer
Was reading the other day that the Eton education of prince harry, rewarded him with a B in art and a D in geography at A level (having dropped out of history). Guess it cant all be brain surgeons etc in privately paid education.
You’re kidding you think it’s all fair. He got to be an army helicopter pilot. I doubt he can spell helicopter let alone achieve the seven O levels you need to be one. These people don’t need any of the advantages a private education offers because the already have all the advantages they could go to Branston Comprehensive School and his brother would still get to be King qualifications or none.My kids however need a bit more help.
 

le bon paysan

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin, France
there are plenty of students over the years who know they will get into the uni course they want to go to who do not need high a level results so do not work hard enough at their a levels
Yet he got into Sandhurst with those results. My BIL went to Dartmouth and he was an ordinary middle class bloke, clever f**ker mind! He wouldn't have got in with those results!
 
That's shocking.
With all the privileges of money , birth, and title , that's all he achieved!


Money cannot buy you brains
Plenty of very clever people do not get high grades
it needs work and dedication to get high grades but also that some clever people can get high grades
like wise some people can appear not to work but paddle like hell under the radar
 

Fruitloop

Member
The successful, multi term winning U.K. Prime Ministers in the past few decades have mostly been very posh and getting posher.
Do the English voters broadly love a toff? How else can we explain Rees-Mogg?

Blair, PM for 3 terms, Fettes (the Eton of Scotland). Oxford.
Brown. Not a toff. Defeated in a GE.
Cameron, PM for 2 terms (ish), Eton.
May. Not a toff. Lost her majority.
Boris. Eton. Oxford. Super Toff. Currently an electoral powerhouse.

Mrs. Thatcher was famously ‘the Grocer’s daughter’ and a Grammar School girl but to the modern ear sounds very plummy.

Do we just feel safer with a Toff in charge?

NB. I don’t think this works for Scotland and Wales. Celts don’t seem to vote for Toffs.
"Toff"? clearly just a tree dwelling oaf with nothing better to worry about could make a post like this. The oaf probably has nothing better to worry about because the state wipes their backside every time they foul their britches. Clearly you have a deeply seated dislike of anyone who is educated. None in the list above are even faintly aristocratic, so it has to be an education thing for you.

When the "toffs" were in charge, British influence extended over nearly half of the globe. A British subject could visit almost any part of the world and be safe, even welcomed. It was the leadership of the "toffs" -backed by the courage and utter savagery of the "non Toffs" -that made us the foremost military and diplomatic power in the world since the Romans.

Most of the major scientific breaks-through in the last 400 years were made by educated men and women that only ignorant baboons would call "Toffs". People -incidentally- that often had money purely because they and their antecedents had worked hard to educate the next generation.

Even ordinary people in this country in the last 100 years were so well educated, by comparison to their modern counterparts, you would probably refer to them as "Toffs".

It is exactly because of the cruddy attitude of intellectually lazy class warriors, throwing stones at those who see work, honest endeavour and the pursuit of excellence as a means of improving their lot in life, that so many of our ordinary people are now largely uneducated by the standards of people of the same class 40 years ago.

People who use the word "Toff" should have their ribs ripped out and stuffed up their noses.

As for the Celts, there are barely any purebred Celts left. Every invading force since the Romans have seen to that :LOL: What exactly do you mean by "Celt"?

Oh, and by the way... Brown and May...count them as success stories?
Grrrr.
 

Muck Spreader

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin
"Toff"? clearly just a tree dwelling oaf with nothing better to worry about could make a post like this. The oaf probably has nothing better to worry about because the state wipes their backside every time they foul their britches. Clearly you have a deeply seated dislike of anyone who is educated. None in the list above are even faintly aristocratic, so it has to be an education thing for you.

When the "toffs" were in charge, British influence extended over nearly half of the globe. A British subject could visit almost any part of the world and be safe, even welcomed. It was the leadership of the "toffs" -backed by the courage and utter savagery of the "non Toffs" -that made us the foremost military and diplomatic power in the world since the Romans.

Most of the major scientific breaks-through in the last 400 years were made by educated men and women that only ignorant baboons would call "Toffs". People -incidentally- that often had money purely because they and their antecedents had worked hard to educate the next generation.

Even ordinary people in this country in the last 100 years were so well educated, by comparison to their modern counterparts, you would probably refer to them as "Toffs".

It is exactly because of the cruddy attitude of intellectually lazy class warriors, throwing stones at those who see work, honest endeavour and the pursuit of excellence as a means of improving their lot in life, that so many of our ordinary people are now largely uneducated by the standards of people of the same class 40 years ago.

People who use the word "Toff" should have their ribs ripped out and stuffed up their noses.

As for the Celts, there are barely any purebred Celts left. Every invading force since the Romans have seen to that :LOL: What exactly do you mean by "Celt"?

Oh, and by the way... Brown and May...count them as success stories?
Grrrr.

I can't actually see what any of this has to do with the OP's comment, he has just posted an interesting observation. :scratchhead:
 

Mek

Member
I don’t think the OP was making a complaint about education. More about the sense of entitlement that individuals feel just for attending certain schools.
On a more personal note I think there is a lot of confusion between education and intelligence. Some of the best educated people I have met are the least intelligent and a lot of the worst educated are extremely intelligent,having to rely on their intelligence rather than their education.
 

Pasty

Member
Location
Devon
You’re kidding you think it’s all fair. He got to be an army helicopter pilot. I doubt he can spell helicopter let alone achieve the seven O levels you need to be one. These people don’t need any of the advantages a private education offers because the already have all the advantages they could go to Branston Comprehensive School and his brother would still get to be King qualifications or none.My kids however need a bit more help.
His Aunty lives across the from me and she is very lovely
 
Anyone interested in the influence of private education on this country would do well to read 'Posh boys: How English public schools ruin Britain'.

Personally, I think it is a joke how the privately educated still dominate many areas of public office and big business. You're not telling me they all get there through ability.

Never say never but I don't like paying for things twice so my kids won't be privately educated. I would rather they found their place in life by dint of their own efforts rather than getting a leg up from some snooty tosspot in an old school tie.
 

Hampton

Member
BASIS
Location
Shropshire
Actually, we are going through that now. I went away 2 weeks before my seventh birthday (mid 1980’s), but there is now way in hell I would send my 7 year off to board now.
When I went, the school told my parents that it would be best for me if they didn’t contact me for 4 weeks. I had never been away from home before and you are faced with that. Anyway, i grew to love boarding, but my ten year old has chosen to board 2 nights per week. We haven’t pushed him into it, and have even told him to wait another few terms until he ups his nights to 3 per week.
My youngest joins the school in the summer 2022 but we won’t let him board at all until he’s 9, and then only a couple of nights.
Schooling has changed, particularly in private schools, and it’s for the better.
 

arcobob

Member
Location
Norfolk
I think it is more British subservience to a toff. Two people of equal ability apply for a job one privately educated and one state school educated and employers favour the privately educated despite the fact that the state educated applicant probably had to work harder to achieve the same results. I probably should add that my wife was a teacher in a private school.
I don`t ever remember being asked which school I went to when applying for a job, simply qualifications and experience.
 

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