Chums

£7.99

Chums

Updated with a new chapter

Political leaders and leadership Corruption in politics, government and society

Author: Simon Kuper

Dinosaur mascot

Language: English

Published by: Profile Books

Published on: 28th April 2022

Format: LCP-protected ePub

Size: 269 Kb

ISBN: 9781782838180


Now with a new chapter on the end of the chumocracy era - and Oxford's upcoming elite for 2050.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2022

A TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BEST BOOK OF 2023

Power. Privilege. Parties.

It's a very small world at the top.

Brilliant ... traces Brexit back to the debating chambers of the Oxford Union in the 1980s - James O'Brien

A searing onslaught on the smirking Oxford insinuation that politics is all just a game. It isn’t. It matters - Matthew Parris

A sparkling firework of a book - Lynn Barber, Spectator

Exquisite and depressing in equal measure - Matthew Syed, Sunday Times

Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May, Dominic Cummings, Daniel Hannan, Jacob Rees-Mogg: Whitehall is swarming with old Oxonians. They debated each other in tutorials, ran against each other in student elections, and attended the same balls and black tie dinners. They aren’t just colleagues - they are peers, rivals, friends. And, when they walked out of the world of student debates onto the national stage, they brought their university politics with them.

Thirteen of the seventeen postwar British prime ministers went to Oxford University. In Chums, Simon Kuper traces how the rarefied and privileged atmosphere of this narrowest of talent pools - and the friendships and worldviews it created - shaped modern Britain.

A damning look at the university clique-turned-Commons majority that will blow the doors of Westminster wide open and change the way you look at our democracy forever.

Show moreShow less