Charles Moore wrote an article last week about the historic over-representation of Etonians in government. It was headlined: “With Etonians shunned in the modern cabinet, where will the new talent come from?”

Oh how we laughed, the sad bitter laugh of a broken system. Here are some of the places I would rather pull talent from over Eton: my local Harvester, the inpatients of my local maternity ward, my brother’s Narcotics Anonymous group. Also I’d like to speak up for the fellow I met yesterday at Heathrow who piled so many bags on to a trolley and drove it masterfully through a crowd of angry, tired travellers without even a furrowed brow. Put him in charge of the trains.

The most recent Etonians to grace us in cabinet were Messrs Johnson and Cameron. Ofsted should be placing Eton in special measures for producing these two who engaged in a 10-year game of whiff-waff, willy-waving rivalry that marched our country off a cliff and then sodded off to write words in sheds for loads of money. Eton created leaders all right, but I suggest in future that the school focuses on quality, not quantity.

The idea that the political establishment is shunning Eton doesn’t ring true, since it is still the school that delivers the most members of parliament. I have actually heard an old Etonian say that having been to Eton now puts chaps at a disadvantage. At the very worst, OEs face being judged on a level playing field with everyone else.

And, while they are not being discriminated against, they might just have had a bit of their privilege chipped away by their own terrible marketing strategy. Welcome, lads, that’s what happens to everyone else. My heart bleeds – they might now have to prove that they are good enough, not just rich enough or well connected enough. Diddums.

The ability to take a risk delivers you to power, but what real risk did any of these people actually take?

Moore does make a pertinent point that Eton focuses on confident public speaking and the ability to take a risk. This is no doubt one of the reasons that Etonians have been in every great office of state. The ability to take a risk delivers you to power, but what real risk did any of these people actually take? There is no risk to their livelihoods or their family’s security. No personal risk at all. It is our lives they have used as collateral and, as much as Eton pushes boldness to go for jobs, it often delivers us calamity: most recently, failing councils unable to care for vulnerable children and a police force no longer able to stem the flow of blood on our streets.

It is not the sons of Etonians left with a knife at their throat and a gun in their back. The reason state school kids take fewer risks is because they have been educated in consequences. I would never send my sons to Eton even if they offered us free places, because Eton wouldn’t teach them anything about the life that they will lead. They don’t need to pick up quips in Latin, they need to be able to code and care. We need cabinet members who understand real-life risk, not 1950s Boy’s Own bravery.

The article trips through all the prime ministers educated in both the private sector and grammar schools, with only Jim Callaghan attending a non-selective state secondary. Moore asserts that state schools are leaving kids without the tools to go to the best universities and bemoans us blaming “elitism”, as any elite would.

Moore's article assumes you have to be clever and brilliant to get to parliament and then climb into the cabinet. Ha!

Moore does, however, have one valid point: I went to a grammar school and while the teaching was no better than elsewhere, the facilities were. More than anything, I know that what was instilled in us was a sense of arrogance, that we were cleverer and destined for greatness. It’s grooming of a sort and it is very powerful.

Poverty was not an issue for the kids at my school. By contrast, at every school in my constituency there are homeless kids living in service station hotels miles away. Teachers are social workers, youth workers and counsellors. They don’t have time to run a Dead Poets Society – they are too busy trying to open up the dead ends.

The very crux of Moore’s article is flawed, as it assumes that you have to be clever and brilliant to get to parliament and then climb into the cabinet. Ha! Politics is still so much about luck and connections. Many state school kids don’t start with bags of luck and they couldn’t make it to the right place at the right time because the bus was late. Perhaps an Etonian was in charge of the bus timetable and said: “What’s a bus?”