Top story: Elitist education is ‘pipeline’ to top jobs

Hello, I’m Warren Murray with the day’s conversation-starters.

Members of the uppermost echelons of British politics, the judiciary, media and business are five times more likely to have been to private school than the general population. Privately educated people, many of whom went to Oxbridge, continue to dominate high-ranking jobs: 39% had an independent education compared with 7% of the general population, according to a study called Elitist Britain 2019 by the Sutton Trust and Social Mobility Commission. The report identifies a “pipeline” from fee-paying schools through Oxbridge and into top jobs.

Luke Heselwood from the Reform thinktank says the “scandalous” figures show that the UK is far from being a meritocracy. “Fixing this will require serious reform to the education system as, despite improvements, the most advantaged are nearly 10 times more likely to attend elite universities than the most disadvantaged.” The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said: “The old boys’ network and the old school tie still hold back talented and hard-working people from less privileged backgrounds.”

Love holding me back, says Johnson – Boris Johnson has set out on a media blitz in which he is vowing never to reveal the events that led to the police being called to the home of his partner Carrie Symonds. The Tory leadership frontrunner insisted on the BBC that “I do not talk about stuff involving my family, my loved ones” because “that is not fair on them”. Johnson is now understood to be rolling out a “media blitz” for the coming days, beginning with a series of closely controlled events on Tuesday. Rival Jeremy Hunt’s camp pointed out that “bottler Boris” has declined all television debates until Conservative members have already begun returning their ballot papers.

Play Video 0:47 Boris Johnson outlines his plans for ‘day one’ if elected PM – video

In a BBC interview, Johnson defended his Brexit plan to renegotiate a deal with the European Union but admitted he could not rip up the entire withdrawal agreement; and said he would tackle the Irish border “on the other side of 31 October during what’s called the implementation period”, but then was forced to agree the UK would not get an implementation period without the withdrawal agreement.

Sweaty times – It is going to feel like 47C in parts of Europe as an unprecedented week-long heatwave rolls across the continent. Meteorologists say temperatures will soar from Spain to Switzerland as hot air is sucked up from the Sahara by a storm stalling over the Atlantic and high pressure over central Europe. Officials in Paris have set up “cool rooms” in municipal buildings, opened pools for late-night swimming, installed extra drinking fountains and postponed school exams. Temperatures in the French capital reached 34C on Monday and that’s just the start. France’s deadliest recent heatwave was in August 2003 when almost 15,000 mainly elderly people died as hospitals were overwhelmed.

Roof over Archie’s head – Frogmore Cottage cost the British taxpayer £2.4m to renovate so Harry, Meghan and Archie could live there, accounts reveal. The 18th century Grade-II listed house – which is actually rather large and uncottagey-looking – is close to Windsor Castle. The bill included work to convert the five apartments in the building back into one single dwelling, which is now the couple’s official residence since they left Kensington Palace to set up their own royal household. Defective ceiling beams and floor joists need doing, as well as upgrades to the heating, power, gas and water.

‘Someone knows who she is’ – A woman posed as the aunt of a cyclist who was killed in London to speak at a meeting against plans for a new segregated bike lane, according to the victim’s mother. Kensington and Chelsea council rejected the scheme. Eilidh Cairns died aged 30 in 2009 after being hit by a tipper truck in the borough. Her sister, Kate Cairns, who founded the road safety charity See Me Save Me after Eilidh’s death said the bike lane scheme, had it been in place, “would surely have prevented the death of my sister”. Eilidh’s mother, Heather, blasted the “effrontery” of the mystery person as she demanded the council identify her: “Someone knows who she is.” The cycle lane plan was drawn up by the office of the London mayor, Sadiq Khan. The borough says it is producing its own plan to direct cyclists to back streets rather than have protected lanes.

Down with filth – The notion that over-cleanliness is bad for children’s health is a dangerous myth, a report from the Royal Society for Public Health has warned. In its survey, 23% of 2,000 people thought “hygiene in the home is not important because children need to be exposed to harmful germs to build their immune system”. “The time has come when we need to sort this one out,” said Sally Bloomfield, lead author of Too Clean or Not Too Clean. “The public is becoming very confused.” Playing outside in the dirt does children good by exposing them to good bacteria, but it is vital they wash their hands before eating and after going to the toilet, says the RSPH. It stresses the importance of cleaning food preparation surfaces and wash dishcloths, but most crucial is hand washing – after going to the toilet, being around pets, before and after preparing food, and after coughing, sneezing or nose-blowing. Adults get four to six colds every year, children pick up six to eight, around one in 20 people get the vomiting bug norovirus, and it could all be kept in check by proper hand washing and hygiene, says the RSPH.

Today in Focus podcast: Can anything stop Boris Johnson?

The Tory leadership hopeful has been avoiding questions on how the police were called to his home after an altercation with his partner. But will questions about Johnson’s previous behaviour and character damage his chances of becoming prime minister? The Guardian’s chief political correspondent, Jessica Elgot, discusses how the incident has been handled by Johnson’s campaign team and the wider questions that have arisen over his judgment and character. And, Bethan McKernan on the mayoral election rerun election in Istanbul that has dealt a serious blow to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Lunchtime read: The new left economics

For almost half a century, the left has won progress on how people think about prejudice, personal identity and freedom, exposed capitalism’s cruelties, sometimes won elections, and sometimes governed effectively afterwards. But it has not been able to change fundamentally how wealth and work function in society. The left, in short, has not had an economic policy to answer that of the right: privatisation, deregulation, lower taxes for business and the rich, more power for employers and shareholders, less power for workers.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian

Capitalism has been made to appear inevitable, and any alternative impossible. But in recent years the prevailing system has started to fail. Rather than sustainable and widely shared prosperity, it has produced wage stagnation, ever more workers in poverty, ever more inequality, banking crises, populism and the climate crisis. Even some rightwing politicians concede the seriousness of the crisis. A huge political space has opened up, and a transatlantic movement of leftwing economists is building a practical alternative to neoliberalism. The result, the new economists claim, will be a “democratic economy” that suits society, rather than a society subordinated to the economy.

Sport

Fifa is holding a priority investigation, to be concluded within 48 hours, into the behaviour of the Cameroon team during their 3-0 loss to England in the last 16 of the Women’s World Cup. The hype around the US finally appears to be waning, even as the Americans beat a resilient Spain side 2-1 with the help of two penalties. Stina Blackstenius fired Sweden into the quarter-finals but they needed a penalty save from Hedvig Lindahl to beat Canada 1-0 in Paris.

Eoin Morgan has declined to join the chorus of voices asking supporters not to boo Steve Smith and David Warner in today’s World Cup match at Lord’s, adding that the pair may have served bans for last year’s ball-tampering scandal but rebuilding public trust takes longer. If England needed a reminder of just how fragile their hopes of making the semi-finals currently are, the presence of Bangladesh breathing down their neck in the standings following a convincing win against Afghanistan provided it. And the Australian Christian Lobby is hosting a fundraising effort on its website for the former Wallabies star Israel Folau after his GoFundMe page was shut down.

Business

The digital bank Monzo is being valued at £2bn after a new wave of fundraising attracted £113m from a group of investors led by Y Combinator, a firm best known for Airbnb, Dropbox and Reddit. The bank has two million users and is aiming to increase that by 50% this year. On the markets, stocks have been down in Asia as investors await the outcome of this weekend’s meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. The FTSE100 is set to drop 0.3% at the opening while the pound is buying $1.275 and €1.117.

The papers

The picture of Boris Johnson holding hands with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds features on several front pages today, though many papers express cynicism about the timing and staging of the pic. “What a Carrie on”, says the Mirror, while the i has: “Johnson breaks his silence but refuses to discuss his ‘loved ones’”. The Telegraph writes: “Boris tries to keep the show on the road” and says that while the “picture paints a thousand words” it “raises many more questions”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Guardian front page, Tuesday 25 June 2019.

Other papers don’t feature the picture but still report on the Tory leadership dramas. The Guardian has: “Johnson plans media blitz as Hunt calls him a ‘bottler’”, the Times says “‘Cowardly’ Johnson launches fightback”, the Express reports on Jacob Rees-Mogg coming to Johnson’s defence: “Time to stop the war on Boris”.

The Mail features the picture of Johnson and Symonds and a deeply unimpressed headline: “Boris and the Mills & Boon scene that takes us all for fools”, though its main story is “Your £2.4m bill to do up Meghan and Harry’s cottage”. As is the Sun’s: “Harry’s £2.4m home Megover”.

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