Watch out, the kids from comprehensive schools have now taken control

I am absolutely delighted by this, I really am, and for several reasons. Firstly because — give or take the Oxbridge stats; 40 per cent of this government attended, so there’s definitely some work to be done bringing those figures down — we finally have a cabinet that looks like the rest of us, 93 per cent of whom are state-educated. A cabinet that in its bones understands who and what it is governing. Either because it is them, or because it sat next to or near them, because it was bezzie mates with them, round their house after school, having them back to theirs for tea, from the age of four to the age of 16, 18. Because it’s never had to navigate the Working Man (or the Unemployed Man, or Woman) as some unknown, unknowable quantity, one to be second-guessed, manipulated and patronised. Because it had the enormous privilege — and make no mistake, it is a privilege — of realising before it even went home on its first day at primary that nothing divides any of us, not in terms of fundamental worth, it’s just that some of us, sometimes, get better breaks.

The prime minister Keir Starmer chairs the first meeting of his cabinet on July 6

CHRIS EADES-WPA POOL/GETTY IMAGES

The second reason I’m delighted is that we finally have a government free of the gilded mediocrity a private education so often imposes. All that empty, baseless charm! Although I should admit to a biased view of the privately educated. For some reason, I developed a terrible pity for them growing up, one I have nevershaken. Really quite early on I got the impression they weren’t as bright as me or my mates, which is why their parents had to pay for them to get extra help in those odd little schools.

As I hit my teenage years, and the quest for boys led me to seek out different social spheres, I encountered more of their ilk. My initial sense of their social and intellectual limitations was reinforced by how little they did to hide their presumption of superiority over me, even though it was so blatantly unmerited. “Oh, I didn’t know you were Priory,” one very disappointed, golden-haired private school boy said to me on discovering that I attended the second-worst comp in town, which apparently meant any designs over me were instantly nixed. “I thought you were classy!”

“Oh, well!” I said, thinking, I’ll take your “class” and raise it not being as thick as mince; PS, you never had a hope in hell anyway.

• I’m grateful for my privileged education (at the local comp)

When I interviewed Boris Johnson two decades later and he tried to side-step one of my trickier question by answering it in Latin, a move designed to intimidate, obfuscate and impress (probably; I don’t know for sure because it failed) … it all felt most familiar.

How lovely to know that the body which now rules over us is certified entirely free of that. Of accents and entitlement and classical reference points masquerading as wisdom while amounting to quite the reverse.

The third reason I’m delighted is because this government’s school background is testimony to how far a comprehensive education can take you. I’ve been gobsmacked at the narrative surrounding Labour’s intention to apply VAT to private school fees, amazed at how truly terrified some parents are when confronted with the prospect of sending their children to state schools. “It’s the end of aspiration!” they cry, as though comps are where you send your kids’ hopes and dreams to die. Or: “It’s the politics of envy!”, like children’s education is a kitchen island and you want everyone to see yours and weep. Or (genuine quote, eavesdropped from a friend of a friend): “My child is too gifted for that”, as if, statistically, there aren’t far more gifted children within the state system; stands to reason, what with the talent pool being so much bigger.

But if the vast majority of individuals holding the highest offices in the land are comprehensively educated, perhaps then these silly, ignorant, baseless and panic-ridden ideas about what state education is, and where it can ultimately lead, will begin to end.

Sobriety? I’ll drink to it

Good for Cara Delevingne, sober since rehab in 2022 and, according to an interview on the cover of yesterday’s Style magazine, launching an alcohol-free prosecco. “I used to think drugs and alcohol helped me cope … but they didn’t, they kept me sad and super depressed. I feel like I’ve got my power back,” she said. So yes, hurrah for that, for not being depressed, for getting your power back … I just can’t help but wonder: is anyone drinking at all any more?

The list of sober celebrities is surely longer than the list of those who drink. Lewis Hamilton, Tom Holland, Florence Welch, Tyra Banks, the former Made in Chelsea stars Millie Mackintosh and Spencer Matthews, Chrissy Teigen, Nicki Minaj, Kit Harrington, Lily Allen, Miley Cyrus, Eminem, Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Davina McCall, Gisele Bündchen …

• Cara Delevingne: ‘I thought drugs helped me cope — they didn’t’

And while obviously you’ve got to champion anyone’s choices, especially if those choices are born of addiction, and while acknowledging alcohol is not terribly good for even those who aren’t addicted … is everyone sober?

I mean I’m not. I was. I went sober a decade ago. I’ve never had a problem with booze, had just drunk quite a lot of it, quite often, especially in the late Nineties and Noughties when no one thought anything of a Tuesday night in the local pub with a bottle of house just to get things started. But then work overwhelmed me, and age started turning my hangovers into 48-hour-long trials by anxiety, positional vertigo and cluster headaches, so … I gave it up. I found it cleansing, liberating, instructive re who your friends actually are — and terribly, terribly dull.

Nothing unusual or unwise or unexpected really happens if you don’t drink, which is a mixed blessing, no? So after six months I started drinking again, in a far more moderate way than I had before. I apparently did that thing you’re supposed to do: I “reset”. But here I am, more than happy to share a carafe on a terrace on a balmy Friday night, in absolutely no danger of launching a brand of booze-free booze any time soon, and satisfied with that.