Allison Pearson
Acouple of weeks ago, I wrote about the scandal of some of our best universities making lower offers to high-paying international students than to our own young people. This is clearly a subject that vexes many readers. I guess it’s proof, were any needed, that we Britons are increasingly a low priority for many of our institutions, from the Church of England offering a sacrament for failed asylum seekers who are then at liberty to seemingly throw drain cleaner at women and children, to the Home Office inviting staff to celebrate “World Hijab Day”.
As my excellent colleague Steven Edginton revealed, the Home Office’s Islamic Network, a voluntary group for Muslim civil servants, enthusiastically described the hijab as being “brought to women as a way of protection”. Most British women (remember us?) would shudder at such condescension. In fact, it has taken four generations to consign such thinking to the past and now, apparently, our taxes are being used to extol it.
I have no objection to any woman covering her head if that is her personal choice (my mum used to put on a headscarf to pop to the shops when I was little; mind you, that was probably to preserve her perm). But government departments have no business commenting either way on female attire. At a time when women and girls in Iran are risking their lives to cast off their headscarves – currently some of the bravest people in the world, if you ask me – the officials to whom those Iranian females might apply for asylum in the UK, were they lucky enough to escape that Handmaid’s Tale hellhole, are endorsing the very religious dress code they are fleeing. A frightening thought. We want asylum seekers to be assessed by someone who shares mainstream British values, don’t we?
The blatant discrimination against some of our British candidates in our universities only reinforces the sense that preservation and promulgation of our culture is of negligible interest to our globalist leaders. Scores of parents and grandparents responded to my original article with tales of fuming injustice. Nicholas said his extremely bright and dedicated boy – 12 grade 9s at GCSE, predicted four A* at A-level – had worked in a medical laboratory before applying to Exeter to read medicine. “He wasn’t even selected for interview,” reports his father.
I believe this is what you call “widening participation”, Nicholas, AKA social engineering at the expense of white middle-class kids. One university administrator confirmed this when she told me that a candidate “not speaking English at home” is considered an advantage. Big tick.
And reckless is the youth who dares admit on his application to being heterosexual. Some, I am told, now lie routinely and tick Bi(sexual). In case they manage to get in and are spotted with a girl- or boyfriend. Garlanded star pupils struggle to get onto STEM courses, which are dominated by Chinese and East Asian students. God help us. What do they think the effect of that tsunami might be on our overburdened services, let alone British teenagers who have worked their socks off? Clearly, they don’t give a damn. All they see is £££ signs. But our government should be wary of tearing up the social contract between generations. I was alarmed by what Sasha, a worried mum, had to report. “Universities preferring high-paying, low-quality international candidates to bright British kids completely reflects the situation of my upper sixth son and his friends,” Sasha wrote. “We made the mistake of going private – to a school where Will’s cohort scored in the top 20 of GCSE results for the entire country. Yet, out of 15 boys applying for humanities subjects at Oxbridge, only one got an offer. These are all boys with 10/11/12 9s at GCSE and with at least three A*s predicted. Some have offers of AAA at Exeter, Leeds etc, but most are now waiting to hear from Durham and Edinburgh. But they aren’t optimistic. How can you not be optimistic when you have achieved such great grades? It does make the boys wonder why they bothered working so hard.”
Just wait until they graduate, Sasha, and discover that the highly educated white British male is knocked out of the recruitment process by top firms obsessed by DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). “These are the same boys who now read that, with World War Three forecast, they are expected to train up, enlist and head into battle,” says Sasha. “Ironically, the same boys that they are excluding from our best universities are the ones who’ve done their CCF (Combined Cadet Force).”
The other day, around the family kitchen table, Sasha says it was fascinating to hear her son and his mates talk about conscription. “An absolute no-no as far as all the boys were concerned. They said, why would they fight for a country that doesn’t support them, doesn’t even appear to like them?” It’s quite the feat to get middle-class boys to despise universities and their own nation in one fell swoop. Honestly, who can blame them? Memo to politicians counting on British kids enlisting: ask not what young people can do for you. Ask what you did for your own young people.
The Telegraph
