Dr Del Boy will see you now

Social mobility? Alan Milburn has been up late at nights recently dotting the I's and crossing the T's on his blessed report. He thinks the professions are keeping out bright boys and girls from working class and middle class backgrounds. It's a toffs paradise in these professional classes apparently.

I find it very hard to be convinced of anything that Milburn says. After all, what kept him back? He's from a working class background. He went to a comprehensive school. He thought Trotsky was the ideal political hero until he met a privileged boy called Tony Blair. You see, not all Blairites are posh. However, Milburn got a taste for the high life and tried to divest his working class background whilst retaining his working class credentials. Instead of moaning, he'd be better off telling the children of today how he did it. And whilst he's at it he might consider that those from his own background may not want to be pushed into the professions. Surely it must be a matter of choice.

All kinds of people move up and down the social ladder. I'm not aware that my doctor is posh. It's arrant nonsense to suggest that the professions are stuffed full of the second sons of the nobility. Talking of nobility, Lord Sugar ain't that posh, neever!

I think the Earl of Onslow hit this social mobility thing on the head in that programme John Prescott did about class. Lord Onslow had Prescott and his wife round for lunch. During the visit, Lord Onslow suggested that Prescott shouldn't have such a chip on his shoulder and should be justly proud of becoming Deputy Prime Minister. In fact, he would welcome him into the House of Lords as a person with a considerable contribution to make. It seemed that Lord Onslow warmed to John Prescott. Even John's wife thought hubby was overdoing it a bit on feeling so grumpy. But Prescott wears class war on his sleeve. It's in his DNA.

The fact that in twelve years of New Labour things have got worse rather than better makes me rather sad. It is not right that a new aristocracy is being formed of conniving, self-serving types at the expense of the gifted and the talented. I take Milburn's report with a vast pinch of salt!