Against 'parallel institutions'

And respectability

Many hours of documentaries and even a book has been dedicated to the educational background of the Tory modernising generation who went through Oxford University in the 1980s. But the politician for whom their education mattered most was Nick Griffin, who was Chairman of the BNP between 1999 and 2014.

The fact that Griffin had been privately educated, and then attended Cambridge marked him out from the beginning of his involvement in fringe politics.¹ Here is how a critical Times profile from 2009 opens:

“At first glance Nick Griffin’s early life appears to mirror that of many within the political elite to which he aspires. A product of the best education money can buy, the BNP leader attended private schools in East Anglia before taking history and law at Downing College, Cambridge.

As his Oxbridge contemporaries set their sights on traditional professional and political success, Mr Griffin was steadfast in his resolve to achieve his own brand of glory within the far Right.”