By the time they are five, disadvantaged white boys are already well behind their peers

We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

Sign up fornow and never miss the top politics stories again.

They are being let down by the system and an in-built, inherent disadvantage faces them, including in my constituency in Mansfield and in many of those communities that have just voted Conservative for the first time. This seems in some part to be because their fate has become a taboo topic; a difficult one to discuss. Surely if you’re both white and male you have all of life’s advantages? The reality is shocking.

Victory for graduate rejected by Police force for being a white male

Pale, male old boys belong in the 1950s, says VIRGINIA BLACKBURN

White boys meeting basic standards is 13 per cent less than disadvantaged black and asian boys

By the time they are five, disadvantaged white boys are already well behind their peers.

The proportion of disadvantaged white boys meeting basic standards in phonics is 13 per cent lower than disadvantaged black boys and 23 per cent lower than disadvantaged Asian girls.

By 16, the gaps have widened further and disadvantaged white boys are 40 per cent less likely to go into higher education than disadvantaged black boys.

This government has a chance to put this right.

It’s not just me highlighting this.

We were warned only last year that white working class boys are falling further and further behind by the former head of the university admissions service, Mary Curnock Cook, who said that it was “astonishing” that “in about ten years’ time the gap between boys and girls will be worse than rich and poor.”

In 2016 the Sutton Trust said it is “particularly concerning that white working class boys and girls continue to perform so poorly” and even Labour’s Angela Rayner, the Shadow Education Secretary, has said that the focus on equality has had a “negative impact” on white, working class boys.