@NN,
Thank you for your comment, is the italicized (by me) what you are referring to in your comment? Mr. Luce’s status as former speech writer for Larry Summers places him firmly in the Neo-Liberal apologist category, not to speak of his advocacy in the pages of The Financial Times. What does this have to do with Luce’s review of these books?
Those who refuse to co-operate tend to come off worse.
This report from The Sutton Trust via The Guardian offers some valuable clues as to the ‘why’ of Mr. Luce’s doubt: a ‘Posh Boy’ must never be taken in by anyone, it is against the ‘code’ of the sons of privilege.
Headline: Most leading journalists went to private schools, says study
Sub-headline: · Report reveals increase in disparity over last 10 years
· Only 14% of top 100 attended comprehensives
See the full list (pdf)Sun editor Rebekah Wade, Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow and Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman all did, but Today presenter John Humphrys, News of the World editor Andy Coulson and BBC Ten O’Clock News presenter Fiona Bruce did not. More than half of Britain’s top 100 journalists were educated at private schools, a proportion that has increased over the past two decades, according to research.
The figures suggest the profession is increasingly dominated by a privately-schooled, Oxbridge-educated elite and demonstrate it is becoming difficult for those from other backgrounds to get a foothold, according to the educational charity that carried out the survey.
The survey showed that 54% of the top 100 newspaper editors, columnists, broadcasters and executives were educated privately, despite fee-paying schools catering for 7% of the school population. That figure has increased from 49% in 1986, when the research was last carried out. Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, said the study confirmed a pattern evident among top lawyers and politicians. “This is another example of the predominance of those who are privately educated in influential positions in society,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/jun/15/pressandpublishing.publicschools
This report is, to say the least offers valuable evidence that the ‘Journalists’ like Mr. Luce, unmentioned in this report, but this part of his Wikipedia entry proves that he is part of ‘The Posh Boys‘ generation, or well within its range:
Edward Luce (born 1 June 1968) is an English journalist and the Financial Times chief US commentator and columnist based in Washington, D.C. Before that he was the Financial Times‘ Washington bureau chief, and South Asia bureau chief based in New Delhi.[1]
Luce is the son of conservative politician Richard Luce; his first cousin is actress Miranda Hart. He completed his secondary education at various boarding schools around Sussex, graduated with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from New College, Oxford in 1990, and received a post-graduate diploma in newspaper journalism from City University, London.[2][1]
His first job was as a correspondent for The Guardian in Geneva, Switzerland.[3][4] He joined the Financial Times in 1995 and initially reported from the Philippines,[1] after which he took a one-year sabbatical working in Washington, D.C. as speech writer for Lawrence Summers, then US treasury secretary (1999–2001) during the Clinton administration.[1][5]
Regards,
StephenKMackSD
StephenKMackSD's Blog 