Loadsamoney

The working class hide their light under a bushel of cash

Not every intelligent working-class child betrayed by the school system meekly accepts his or her fate, as many supporters of grammars imply. Many find a different route up and out.

Specifically, formal education's loss has been entrepreneurship's gain. There are many explanations for the stunning success of British business in the past quarter of a century - is it possible that the decline of the grammar schools is one? Smart men and women of humble origin, previously assimilated into the anti-business culture of the educated middle class, have instead raised British retail, catering, fashion, finance and entertainment in some cases from mediocrity, in other cases from the dead. The difference between them and their grammar school-educated predecessors is that as they moved up, they did not adopt middle-class cultural values.

Crampton's got a point in this piece, particularly about the rejection of middle-class mores.