Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK

by Simon Kuper

Power. Privilege. Parties.
It's a very small world at the top.

Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May, Dominic Cummings, Daniel Hannan, Jacob Rees-Mogg: Whitehall is swarming with old Oxonians. They debated each other in tutorials, ran against each other in student elections, and attended the same balls and black tie dinners.

They aren't just colleagues - they are peers, rivals, friends. And, when they walked out of the world of student debates onto the national stage, they brought their university politics with them.

Thirteen of the seventeen postwar British prime ministers went to Oxford University. In Chums, Simon Kuper traces how the rarefied and privileged atmosphere of this narrowest of talent pools - and the friendships and worldviews it created - shaped modern Britain.

A damning look at the university clique-turned-Commons majority that will blow the doors of Westminster wide open and change the way you look at our democracy forever.

Now with a new chapter on the end of the chumocracy era - and Oxford's upcoming elite for 2050.


'Brilliant ... traces Brexit back to the debating chambers of the Oxford Union in the 1980s' James O'Brien

'A searing onslaught on the smirking Oxford insinuation that politics is all just a game. It isn't. It matters' Matthew Parris

'A sparkling firework of a book' Lynn Barber, Spectator

'Exquisite and depressing in equal measure' Matthew Syed, Sunday Times

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2022

A TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BEST BOOK OF 2023

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Audiobook, British Literature, Society, Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 2022

Reviews

[books4chess · Rating 4 out of 5]

“If Brexit didn’t work out, the Oxford Tories could always just set up new investment vehicles inside the EU, like Rees-Mogg, or apply for European passports, like Stanley Johnson."

I don’t know what I expected about a book called Chums, focused on the British political elite, their time at Oxbridge, and a look into how the establishment cemented - and continues to influence - the governmental structure we see today.

But it was not fun. Amongst learning many politicians who never appeared to particularly skilful yet became prominent governmental figures happened to be related to the Queen, along with former Oxford protocols being as elitist as Abercrombie (check the documentary), there wasn’t much to be proud of.

I’ve never given much thought to Oxbridge and honestly I’m glad I didn’t. For one thing, the book highlights just how fundamental the establishments appear to have been in how Brexit played out, but additionally, the internal corruption the networks have enabled, and the unfair playing ground the rest of us are at least five steps behind on.

I wanted to hate Kuper for how much he placed Oxford on a pedestal. Yet I understand why he does and rather begrudgingly, I fear I agree. This isn’t to say that the majority of students are linked to the corrupt assembly line that our country is built on - if anything, the book highlights how even large populations of the students are just as ‘outside’ as the rest of us peasants.

Reflecting on this book with current real-world examples has not been comforting. Given how the government wants to minimise humanity degrees despite George Osborne literally only having a History degree prior to being UK Chancellor, and in a society where children of millionaires consider themselves ‘working class’ has left my outlook rather bleak on the future. After all, as the book quotes, what amazing security to assume to have always been well-off would suggest one would always be well-off”.

Proceed with caution.

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rhetorically engaging, fantastically written, and well researched. This book has all the hot gossip from Oxford in the 1980s, exploring how that generation of graduates was shaped, and how they are now shaping Britain. Cherwell Magazine serves as the diary for the Tories who now dominate British politics, and the Oxford debating club as a kind of lyceum for our current era. It is here we see the making of modern Britain in the post-Thatcher era.

One key theme is a lack of seriousness. Whilst war, famine, the fading empire, stagflation and an identity crisis moulded the prime minister's of the pre-Thatcher era, the contemporary leaders haven't faced any real struggle. This, Kuper believes, is one of the reasons why our current elite seem "out of touch" to many of their compatriots.

However, despite the fun I had reading it, I would be falling into my own ideological biases if I didn't mention the sloppiness of Kuper's reasoning. The author seems to believe in a kind of Great Man Theory of History, wherein chaps from the elite think Great Thoughts, and then put those thoughts into actions, shaping world history as if there were no concrete social relations that they inhabited. Whether you agreed with the Brexit referendum or not, the fact that a populace had to be persuaded to either side cannot be ignored, but Kuper seems to think that isn't the case.

Also, the idea that the Oxford Debating Club is the only thing that separates Starmer and Johnson's powers of rhetoric seems quite a stretch...

[Melindam · Rating 4 out of 5]

OH, the benefit of hindsight!

A very interesting, short summing up of the origins of and the road to Brexit as well as a sad one, when all is said and done, as the sunny uplands for the masses seem nowhere in sight, it's there for our chums, the rest don't matter.

And it's not as if politicians should ever be called to account for their lies ... anyway.. who was lying? It's just that facts are boring.

SIGH.

Deserves a proper review. Will try to get there eventually.

The audiobook was narrated very well by Marl Elstob.

[Juan Grana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining, but rather superficial.
was more like 3.5 stars but rounded it up because I did find myself (guiltily) enjoying it.

[Nickatb · Rating 2 out of 5]

A severe case of Brexit brain rot.

The author tries to win our sympathy by defining himself apart from the establishment subjects of the book, even though he’s an Oxford-educated FT columnist himself.

The trouble is, this short book is exactly the sort of lazy, provocative essay that he criticises as being at the heart of Oxford thinking. No one else but an Oxford grad could have tried to write a serious book based on a handful or written sources, a docu-drama, some personal reflections, and chats with people he already knew.

The name-dropping of some of these sources - like Sam Gyimah - is particularly jarring (Gyimah has, rightly, not been forgiven in many quarters for his crooked campaign against Emma Dent Coad). Similarly, making people like Theresa May, Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg the object of discussion without even mentioning the horrendous, often racist, policies they implemented, is a miserable and alienating experience.

The thing is, the ways in which class in the UK replicates itself is a serious subject. It’s worth thinking about properly. To try to do this from the standpoint that Brexit is unquestionably malign (which leads to bizarre exercises like working out whether classics or history are ‘remain’ or ‘leave’ degrees) is ineffective. And the few interesting ideas in the book (like the screening of Brideshead Revisited in 1981 leading to Rees-Mogg’s avatar) are both unoriginal (sources are given) and laid on a bit thick.

Kuper knows his trade, and writes pleasant, short paragraphs in chapters which are short enough to do justice to the simplicity of his analysis.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be an interesting little book. It looks at the core of the Chumocracy - how the ruling caste went to school with each other, went to university with each other, married each other, and are sending their children on the same trajectory to perpetuate themselves. I think that I knew this already, but the book provides an interesting data point.

The description of the system is good, but the analysis is a bit thin. Admittedly, Eton and Oxford do have a grip on the ruling class in the UK, but it would be far more interesting to understand why that might be? After all, the UK has more than one ancient and famous university, there is more than one ancient school. What is the grip of these institutions that helps them to maintain their place. It could be money and endowments, but these exist elsewhere. We are never quite given an insight into why that might be.

Does the narrow gene pool of the British ruling class constitute a problem? I think that the answer is provided by the results that the system generates. If Britain were a prosperous place, with a well settled and contented population, which commanded the respect of our near continental neighbours, which was valued by our allies and feared by our foes, then it wouldn't be much of a problem because it would have generated a positive outcome.

Sadly, none of this is the case. Britain is a place whose prosperity is ebbing away, riven by factional disputes about the distribution of what little wealth there is. The relatively high levels of inequality are fracturing society to give rise to a seething and discontented population. Our near neighbours think that we are mad owing to Brexit, our allies treat us as an afterthought and we are as fearsome as Dennis Healy's dead sheep. This is the outcome of a narrowly focussed ruling class that lacks either foresight or vision.

Why is this? At the end of the day, the sorry fact is that an Eton and Oxford education isn't all that good. Both institutions fail to prepare our leaders to run the country. Both give too much weight upon style over substance. The author claims that reform is in the air. We have yet to see any evidence of this. When they do reform, then maybe Britain will be a better place to live. However, their rule may take a temporary suspension following heir lack of vision becoming too evident. The country is in a mess at the moment and the Oxford Chums are offering no hope of a happy way out.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

examination of the oxbridge chums who took over UK especially after brexit. interesting in parts

[Simon Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his 2019 diary, following the election of the current Prime Minister, Alan Bennett wrote “It’s a gang, not a government.”

Kuper’s book serves to demonstrate the surprising degree of accuracy in the caricature of the current Government as a gang of privileged university friends playing political games. It also explores the degree to which this has been true in the past, and highlights the unhealthy degree to which our political classes have been drawn from a narrow background. His particular focus is on Oxford University, and specifically the arts and humanities degrees at that University. (I didn’t previously know that traditionally the upper classes look down upon science degrees as too ‘practically useful’.)

It’s not long since I read Sad Little Men: Private Schools and the Ruin of England, an angry account of the damage inflicted by private boarding schools which skirts around similar territory. The tones of the two books are notably different: while Beard is viscerally angry, Kuper feels more inquisitive. He also comes up with some interesting suggestions on how to correct the problems he identifies.

I’m glad I read this.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this as I was offered but declined trying my luck on a scheme to bring comprehensive pupils to read PPE at Oxford - I would have been there same time as Boris and Dave.
There is a lot of circumstantial detail here and it makes a good bank holiday read. The argument: this Oxford Union based clique, centred on Johnson, Gove, Rees-Mogg and Cummings pursued their entitled vision to Brexit, thinking of none but themselves, wrapped up in privilege and with minimal cramming and overfond of japes and rhetoric.
Rings true, but also reads a lot like a newspaper column, rather thin. Lacks gravitas, as one of these awful people featured might say.

[Owen McArdle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having been to Cambridge myself a lot more recently than the Oxford the author describes, I was interested to read the student anecdotes from the 1980s and compare them to my own experience – something which is addressed explicitly in the final chapter. And the first half of the book was largely enjoyable for that reason.

While there may be some truth in the argument being made about every problem in the UK being down to most politicians being educated in Oxford (and we don't get as far as 2022 so naturally the UK is the only country that has problems), it's also tortuously hyperbolic at times:

‘Cameron calculated that if the Leave cause were led by non-Oxbridge outsiders like Nigel Farage, Remain would win.’

Not only is that an absurd thing to say, but within a couple of chapters Dom Cummings is being held up as an example of an Oxford tutorial blagger!

[Roland Glotzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short (less than 200 pages) easy to read book was informative for someone living in the UK but originally from another country in understanding the incestuous relationship between private schools like Eton, Oxbridge universities and the political elite.

It helped me understand the way debates are conducted in the Commons and why outrageous lying (even to Parliament with regard to numerous violations of Covid rules) apparently does not kill political careers.

I cannot judge how objective the author is but to an outsider it provides at least a rational explanation.

[Ricky Bevins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A breezey takedown of the Oxbridge-educated ruling class, leaving you with the grim impression that a significant portion of Oxford graduates, more so those over 40, are actually quite thick.

It is eye-opening to discover just how lackadaisical getting a humanities degree from Oxford was in the 1980s, with its encouragement on building a quick articulacy on a subject rather than a deep understanding.

The final updated chapter gives some hope that things have changed and are still changing, in the sense that Oxford is now much less likely to produce another David Cameron or Boris Johnson, but one has to wonder what damage is left to be inflicted by those of the highly-networked, Eton-Oxford-educated, overwhelmingly-male Thatcherite-disciples - the only class that is encouraged to practice class solidarity for its own interests.

[Caleb Loh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Harith for the recommendation. An interesting story about the “Oxford Brexiteers”: Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and their friend Dan Hannan. They came of age in Oxford during the 1980s, when it was noted that “the Oxford of 1988 was indistinguishable from the Oxford of 1688”. They all studied un-modern subjects like Classics, English, and History; their political careers were rooted in the Oxford Union; and their attitudes to power shaped by the Bullingdon Club.

[Anwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Flows well, can tell the author did their research, but just feels a bit too Linear a storyline for me to be convinced that it explains the entire build up of 1980s to modern day conservative dominance in politics.

[Nicola Mackenzie-Smaller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit depressing to be honest. I wonder how we will ever have a government not composed of people who went to school and university together? This book is a well-written explanation of all the things which have utterly infuriated me throughout my adult life. It explains a lot about how Brexit came about, how the UK’s response to Covid was different to other countries and how our politicians are not serious about policy, but driven by speechifying and competition within an elite group. Some sort of weird British deference to this elite keeps people voting for this group of entitled, self-serving, horrors. Worth a read if you want to feel extra annoyed about life.

[Jason King · Rating 1 out of 5]

As that very rare bird, a working-class comprehensive kid who managed to win a place to read history at one of Oxford’s poshest colleges in the mid-1980s, I’ve nothing much against the intent of this book: to expose the the limitations of an Oxford arts degree, especially PPE or classics, together with the misplaced sense of entitlement of the boys from major public schools who can use it as a finishing school that opens the way to a Tory parliamentary career. However, this book is as thinly researched, facile and disjointed as one of the hastily-concocted essays which Johnson and some of his ilk wrote for their long-suffering tutors and continue to spew out for their credulous and easily-bamboozled newspaper readers. This despite the fact that Kuper, who had the benefit of foreign education, a professor father and William Ellis sixth felt so aggrieved at how lazy he’d been allowed to be in approaching his language degree at Oxford that he felt compelled to do a masters in the US where they made him read a thousand whole pages a week. No wonder he needs to relax now rather than attempt anything as strenuous as serious journalism.

[Ruhi Dang · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a fascinating and easy to get through read. It's a must read if you live in the UK. If you ever thought of the poor pandemic response, or the dismal Brexit strategy or the general decline of contemporary Britain and wondered, how did we get here?, this book is your answer. It's part realisation, part eye opener about the Eton-Oxford privilege that put a number of men on the front lines, making policies and decisions they understand nothing about. 'It would be nice to think that disasters will prompt change, a sweeping out of the old order, but we all know how Britain works.'

[Mathew Coombs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some sobering statistics in his quietly devastating critique of the shallow pool the Westminster establishment fishes from to recruit for its political elite.

1- 7% of the public are educated at private schools. Sunak's current cabinet is made up of 65% privately educated ministers
2- Even during the 1980s when only 13% of people went to Higher Education, less than 0.5% of those graduated from an Oxbridge College, yet 13 of the 17 post war Prime Ministers graduated from Oxford University. Four of them educated at one very exclusive private school in Berkshire (you know the one)

In this Venn Diagram of private education crossing Oxford post graduate degree we have the Oxford Tories whose power an influence only has seemed to grown in the last decade. Their policies and concerns such as Brexit and Austerity has shaped the UK as it stands in 2023 and if it is to be their legacy it is a damning one.

Firstly this book is not a hatchet job on either Oxford University or the Private Schools. Most people who attend either (or both) of course do not become senior politicians. But the fact is that a generation of Oxford Tories from the 1980s and 1990 who were both remote from most ordinary people and not at all diverse or representative of 20th or 21st Century Britain, were groomed for power in the most shocking and haphazard way.

I don't want to put in any spoilers but Kuper quietly builds up a case to show the generation of Oxford Tories, were shaped by the empty debating rhetoric of the Oxford Union and the facile skills that PPE degrees inculcated into them (basically to acquire the sheen of knowing the surface detail of many things but nothing of substance). These forces created the empty and spineless political class so typical of Cameron, Johnson and Gove. What aside from gaining and holding on to power did these men believe in? These were not able and serious people yet they have and continue to wield real power of millions of Britons.

Oxford Union politics was a jolly game to them and they with their wealth and influence were always shielded from the consequences of what the did.
Cameron was prepared to gamble with the UK place in the EU with the 2016 referendum to try to silence the Euro-sceptic wing of the Tory party, it failed and he walked away back to his comfortable life.
Of course any English person with their finely tuned class antenna would know this instinctively. President Obama, would not be expected to, but with acute insight, he wrote in his memoirs on first meeting David Cameron, that he seemed to be a man at infinite ease with himself and the world around him as if disaster would not touch him.

At the end of the book Kuper remarks at how Oxford is now making real strides to be more representative of modern Britain with its student intake. The Vice Chancellor recently was quoted that she was frankly embarrassed that Micheal Gove was a product of the University- will this feed into our political establishment recruiting more diverse people? One can only hope.

[Liam Inglis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An infuriating and illuminating book, for much of it I think I was hate reading. It is a brutal and searing takedown of much of the cast of the Conservative government of the past 14 years, but it also takes aim at the wider political system which has allowed so many out of touch and unserious Oxford graduates to dominate the Prime Ministership, the Cabinet, Parliament, the civil service and wider British society.

It was deeply interesting to learn just how little Oxford students in the liberal arts actually learned in the 1980s and how un-seriously both the students and teachers took in providing such a limited education. However, it has been painfully obvious in the past decade how an emphasis on rhetoric rather than substance has so limited our public debate and crop of politicians. And how the Oxford Union was a perfect training ground for so many Tories to hone this emphasis on rhetoric and good quips rather than a focus on knowing the substance behind the jokes.

The book may have benefited in some areas with a greater empirical focus rather than the mainly anecdotal and qualitative approach taken. While this was definitely useful in understanding many of our recent politicians like Johnson, Gove, Cameron and so many more, it perhaps could have better allowed Kuper to make his wider argument that Oxford has been so dominated by a "ruling caste" which then uses Oxford as a way of retaining their overwhelming dominance over the UK. While this point is still made in the book, and supported by some statistics and many case studies, I think a clear empirical section could have really elevated the wider argument being made.

Overall, the book was a very well written attack on the "Chumocracy" or "Oxocracy" and exposes, if even still possible, just how rigged the British system is in favour of such an elite few, and just how utterly unqualified, unsuited and out of touch so many of our politicians, civil servants, journalists and business leaders are. If the book doesn't leave you feeling utterly radicalised, then Kuper is probably describing you!

[Ophelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent insight into the British governments over the last three decades; how they came to power (nepotism), how they stayed in power (nepotism) and how they made a complete mess of things (ill equipped to manage a school fete).
What I found shocking is not that they nearly all studied at Oxford, I knew this to a large extent, but that none of them studied science or maths or business. They all studied, more or less, the same subjects of PPE or classics. This is just one example of how it is impossible to have a well rounded government if they all read and study the same thing.

Their own echo chamber of nonsense.

More fools us for voting in these fools.

[Nick Chantarasak · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about a deeply depressing subject, particularly if you a British. It lays out the foundations of how our politicians are massively out of touch, born to rule with no talent and all out for personal gain rather than for the greater good. It's tragic, but hopefully a book that will be consigned as a 'history book of UK politics' rather than as a running narrative of the sorry state of political affairs we find ourselves in currently. Worth reading for sure, but it will make you depressed, angry and deflated.

Change may be around the corner.

[Zahraa]

There's only so many times I can hear "Oxford" & "Tori"

[Carolien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simon Kuper attended Oxford at the same time as a number of current Conservative Party luminaries including the immediate past 4 prime ministers and various other functionaries. He sets out to analyse how the public school culture which most of them experienced as well as Oxford in the 1980's contributed to their worldview and approach to politics where details and complexity are ignored in the interest of the moment. Insightful and clearly argued.

[Erin Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting read, albeit i took it slow. demonstrates the elitism of Oxford in the 80s and 90s and how this has impacted our political landscape in the uk.

[Eleana Skelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very bang average. Interesting content which gets a bit lost in the way it’s written. Author tries to drop himself into the story too much.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic read. Explains a lot about the state of the current UK government and the class system. Highly recommended.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The problems of this book are two fold .

On the one hand Kuper makes a compelling case for the complete and lasting overthrow of Britain’s chumocracy. For gods sake let’s end the days of our country being run by a group of Oxford educated public school boys. It’s not good for fairness , it’s not good for the millions of excluded young people who could perhaps offer an interesting vibrant future , and looking at the past 20 years it’s not much good for the country.

On the other hand the writing is too emotionally suffused with what Jack Nicholson describes so well in the film “ as good as it gets “ .

Quote : “ what makes it so hard is not that you had it bad , but that you are so pissed that so many others had it good “.

Kuper simply seethes that he wasn’t part of the inner group who landed in Oxford well connected from school and eased seamlessly into top positions in government. This bitter and twistedness detrimentally affects his judgement and the writing.

And the question arises - Given that societies always end up with a layer of cream at the top , which kind of layer would he rather have ?

Ordered systems have always historically ended up with some sort of layer of fat cats or in some regimes a layer of homicidal maniacs. Our layer at least has the benefit of being very conservative , yes resistant to change and tending to look after it’s own. But always welcoming ( after trying to keep the drawbridge up as long as poss ) to ambitious clever chameleons like Gove.

I have skin in this game having been a graduate of one of these illustrious places in 1981 . I was also rather amazed at the schools based hierarchy that existed but my approach has always been to accept it and live within it. Now I see it all as a bit of a joke , not to be taken seriously. Doors will open if you are persistent and hard working. I’m afraid Kuper seems to have been completely overwhelmed by it all and I would suggest he calms down.

However his central point - when he’s not spoiling his argument by ranting - that the system needs a shake up , I buy that wholeheartedly.

I would love to see a new breed , a new type of person in power. BAME or social class distinctive - it doesn’t matter much , we just need an end to the predictability and I suspect Johnson will have assisted to that end. Perhaps it will be his crowning achievement

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very compelling, paints a powerful portrayal of a caste of political elite who are taught, from birth, that they will be powerful, and to value rhetoric and personal gain over policy and truth. Definitely an interesting anthropological study on a society as alien to most middle- and working-class Brits as any foreign country.

[Andy Lopata · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book that explores how the UK has been ruled by an entitled elite whose abilities depend on family networks, the right schools, a chumocracy and , above all, the ability to form an argument on any topic irrespective of any in depth understanding of the subject at hand or its repercussions.

The lifelong links between so many people at the top of our society is shocking, even if not surprising. The shallow nature of their learning and ability is worse.

The author clearly has picked a camp and Conservative voters and Brexit fans probably won’t like this book. But they should pay attention to it and ask themselves, irrespective of your political beliefs, what qualities they want in their leaders.

Based on this book, it’s not clear that we have evolved since the 17th Century.

Everyone should read this. And it’s not a chore. Well written, engaging and fascinating. As well as more than a little depressing.

[Ben Donovan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting look into the British elite, and a very timely read with Partygate/the vote of no confidence happening right now. EXCELLENT companion to last years One of Them: An Eton College Memoir by Musa Okwonga, although this brings in much more study of the lives of others vs. memoir. Both fantastic, would highly recommend both, just a big Simon Kuper fan, and I think I could have done well at Oxford (does that sounds bad?).