You could purge the upper classes of its Latin and even of its Etonian playing fields; but class is encoded in capitalism’s DNA. You can wage war against genetic destiny, but you’ll be fighting a losing battle. As Jeff Goldblum put it in Jurassic Park – nature finds a way.

Source Direct: Today’s Sir Humphreys



“News addicts, activists and idealists tend to be confounded by the apparently slow recognition of a major social and economic crises in the wider public. But taking a step back from the frenetic cycle of events makes perfect sense of the phenomenon.”

Analysis: It’s too early to know the meaning of 2020


With Covid having struck everyone from the Windsors to Donald Trump, a myth emerged that it does not discriminate on grounds of class. But on almost every metric this is false. Pandemic-related school absences have thus been highest in Scotland’s poorest communities.

Source Direct: School’s out for summer


Ahead of the pupil protest outside the SQA’s HQ today, it is worth thinking about the structural disadvantages facing young people from deprived communities in the broader context of this economic crisis. Economics commentator Aditya Chakrabortty wrote yesterday about the enormous ‘Covid jobs crisis’ to come when the furlough scheme finishes at the end of October, with […]

Cecilia’s Cs


The Scottish Government’s new ‘Framework for Decision-Making‘ document is worth 20 minutes of your time. It sets out a sound set of principles in which to move forward on the public health side, based on learning from best international practise and with the right values at its heart. There is no talk of “flattening the […]

A “class group-think” problem?