The other PPE

For the past few months, PPE has meant Personal Protective Equipment. There is bitter controversy over the failure to provide adequate supplies of same. But in the world before Corona, PPE meant Oxford University’s Philosophy, Politics and Economic degree. There was, and is, controversy over this form of PPE too. It concerns the growing and supposedly malign colonisation of our political institutions by entitled PPE grads.

Full disclosure: I graduated from the PPE School in 1961. Like most PPE students, I majored in Politics. Philosophy was too esoteric and Economics too much like hard work. I went on effortlessly to a lifetime in political journalism, with occasional forays into politics proper. Lucky old me. And there’s the rub. What if you are out of the magic circle?

PPE was introduced into Oxford as Modern Greats, a century ago this Autumn, amid much shaking of reactionary, wise old heads. It was a dumbed-down, serve-yourself, buffet degree, not an in-depth study of one subject, they complained. Controversies have dogged the degree ever since, in spite of its popularity with undergraduates, and the fact that dozens of universities around the globe have pinched the idea and introduced copycat courses.

The latest bout of navel gazing was sparked by fears that the political jobs market is now being swamped by a growing army of identikit, young apparatchiks. They are supposed to swan from ivy covered halls into a period on the staff of an MP, then perhaps a year or so in some partisan think tank and a spell in the head office of  the party of their choice. And then they go on to become a spad or aide in a senior Minister’s private office. Finally, with a little bit of luck, they are eased into a nice safe seat in the Commons. It may be called the professionalisation of politics. And it may be inevitable. But, it is claimed, it is swamping the system with an endless army of cynical opportunists with no experience of earning a living by doing a real job, in the real world.

Where does this process leave those driven by idealism or ideology, or who have taken a degree in hard knocks from the University of Life? The awkward squad who used to provide much needed friction and diversity in the Commons. Of course I don’t want more beardy wierdies and lumpenmarxists, (sorry, Jeremy) or more merchant bankers and superannuated union officials. But neither do I want our politicians and commentators to look like those mass produced elite insiders, churned out by education factories in France and Germany.

Modern Greats was dreamed up as a radical counter-balance to Oxford’s pride, the elite Greats course. This was a supercharged Classics degree, embracing literature, language and life “Before the Common Era”. Bizarrely it was designed to turn highly intelligent students into Mandarins, able to man (appropriate word at the time) the highest echelons of the civil and foreign service. It was meant to provide Cabinet ministers who were equipped to oversee the governance of the greatest empire in the world. Their Clasical knowledge would magically enable Greats graduates to deal with, say, the intricacies of transport policy, economic management, town and country planning, defence, foreign affairs and the new welfare state.

By 1920, it was obvious that there where two problems with this cunning Victorian plan. The first was that you had to have first rate Latin and Greek merely to join the course. This pretty much ruled out anybody who had not been to a major public school. But in the aftermath of world War One, Oxford (parts of it anyway) wanted to open its doors to a wider range of bright students from less privileged backgrounds.The second was that the Victorian idea of Greats no longer worked. You needed more than impeccable Latin, Greek, good manners and a good family name, to run a modern state. You needed modern political skills. Hence Modern Greats.

So why has this current PPE crisis taken a century to bubble to the surface? The blame lies not with the graduates or with the syllabus. It is down to the marked shift in political institutions. Endless jobs for the boys, and girls too, these days. Ok, I did all right back in 1961. But I was a bit of an exception. There were relatively few jobs going in politics or journalism. That was why so many of my colleagues ended up in the civil service, local government or something mysterious called “management”.

There are now more – many more – think tanks than I could count on my fingers and toes. Dozens of them. All offering pleasant, paid berths. Back in 1961 there was only the Institute for Economic Affairs, a little — and little known — free market research and pressure group, regarded as unimportant and distinctly wacky by most of my fellow students.

MPs did not each have a little army of bright young things, all on the public pay roll of course, researching away, when not making mischief. There must be several hundred such creatures scurrying round the corridors of Westminster now.

Harold Wilson was regarded as a dangerously radical Prime Minister a few years later, because he allowed his Ministers to appoint one (yes, one) political aide and one specialist aide (in education, transport or whatever.) And departmental press offices were tiny affairs staffed by a few career civil servants. They were dedicated largely to promoting their Department rather than spinning and smearing on behalf of their Minister. Now you need a stick to beat off the political appointees — the aides, researchers and spin doctors, who surround most Ministers. As for today’s giant lobbying and public relations firms, the PPE job creation schemes we know and love, they simply did not exist to offer employment.

These trends are unlikely to be reversed. All we can hope is that PPE as now taught is designed to produce serious thought about current problems. So here — collected by members of the University’s ongoing research project into the history of the PPE course — are a few questions from this year’s “Schools” as we quaintly call Finals.

• What is democracy?
• Describe the operation of the Referendum in modern democracies.
• Criticise the proposals which have been made for the reform of the House of Lords.
• On what grounds of principle or expediency should governments deal with revolutionary propaganda?

Surprisingly these new, bang up to date questions, could just as relevantly been asked of me back in 1961, or indeed set by the examiners for the first PPE Schools a century ago. A week may be a long time in politics. It turns out that a century isn’t. The same old problems bubble up decade after decade. But here I have a confession to make. I cheated. The questions were not set in 2020. Nor in 1961 and not in 1961. They were set in 1920. I hope this reinforces my point.

So perhaps there is not a lot wrong with the PPE syllabus, or with the graduates it produces. They are the victims of the success of the system. If we really want diversity, it’s the recruiters who need to widen their catchment area.