My guest is Simon Cooper.

Simon Cooper is a journalist and a Financial Times columnist, and his new book is called Chums,

How a Tiny Cast of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK.

Welcome to the podcast, Simon.

Thank you for having me on.

Okay.

Well, your book has just come out.

Interesting read, that's for sure. Many of my listeners of this podcast are not from the UK, so maybe some more background is

necessary compared to maybe other interviews you've given about your new book. First of all,

why is it just Oxford? People are familiar, of course, with the concept of Oxford and Cambridge,

Oxford, but why is the focus of your book and why is the phenomenon

centered around Oxford? It surprised me as well when I began researching it, that there

have been no post-war prime ministers from Cambridge, that 11 of 15 prime ministers since the war

have been from Oxford. Only one went to another university in the UK,

Gordon Brown, who was at Edinburgh. And the next prime minister, as we enter the last two of the

Conservative Party leadership race, will also be from Oxford, either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss.

So I was amazed by the grip of just Oxford, not Cambridge at all, on British power.

And, you know, I call it an oxocracy.

And I think it has a lot to do with the prestige of the Oxford Union debating society,

which attracts, you know, ambitious 17, 18 year old politicoes to apply to Oxford.

And then in many cases, the politics, philosophy, economics degree, ambitious 17, 18-year-old policy goes to apply to Oxford. And then in many cases,

the politics, philosophy, economics degree, PPE, which is taught at Oxford, not at Cambridge.

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