The greats, James Naughtie and John Humphrys, didn't need an elite education. Credit: Bill Robinson/Radio Times/Getty Images
Fresh out of the London School of Economics, my head full of theories about taming inflation, I was sent to cover a coup in the Maldives.
At an airfield outside Delhi, I was shepherded onto a Russian Antonov troop carrier with a few other journalists. It had no seats. The journey took hours and at one point a pilot appeared and started walking down the row of reporters, asking each person something. It was very loud so there was no way of hearing his question until he got to me. “Do you have a guidebook for the Maldives? We don’t know which Island the airport is on.”
I did. The pilot beamed. He returned to the cockpit, and the plane changed direction, doubling back on itself. I’d spent long hours in the library with Hayek and Schumpeter, but in the end I was saved by Berlitz. We landed safely in the Maldives — only to find the coup had fizzled out. The pirates who had cackhandedly attempted to overthrow the government set sail and never came back. This was the beginning of my career.
Since then, it has included wars, revolutions, errors of judgement, stomach-turning fear, blood-spattered sights, narrow scrapes, changes of heart and mind. And that’s just inside Broadcasting House. Could all of this — should all of this — have been achieved without an education provided at the taxpayers’ expense in the years 1980 to 1983 at the London School of Economics?
Almost certainly. My father Peter Woods had no degree when he threw himself out of an aircraft for his first and last parachute jump in order to report on the Suez crisis for the Daily Mirror. Martha Gellhorn had no degree when she became the world’s most celebrated and intrepid reporter and author. Nor did another force of nature, the great John Humphrys, whose alma mater is The Penarth Times.
But John’s hopped it to Classic FM and we are left, on the Today Programme, in a fusty senior common room impervious to cheeky lads and lasses from South Wales — unless they’ve spent years looking at books. The current presenters’ roster boasts two Oxford graduates, two from Cambridge, and me. It is unlikely that another non-graduate like John will present it any time soon and we are reduced as a result. Our perspectives are less diverse. The BBC, to its credit, is upping the number of recruits from non-degree backgrounds, suggesting that it understands that three years punting on the Cam is not the only pathway to success.
Perhaps that’s because the Corporation sees the wider picture. Death by professionalisation. It’s not elite over-production that worries me so much as the quality of the elite that is being over-produced. University these days encourages a way of thinking about the world that is homogenous. Those who go — even those who have seen hardship and adversity — are smoothed around the edges. They don’t question the establishment because they (alright, we) are the establishment.
At its worst, all this leads to a deadening. A weeding out of the kind of prickly cussed characters who bring vivacity to any line of work — and have made British journalism what it is.
Take the late great Brian Barron, a former BBC war correspondent. He came across an ITN crew broken down in the desert in the first Gulf war he gave them water and passed on their co-ordinates to the military so that they could be rescued, but he refused to take their tape back to base to be broadcast. Brian was once described by Jon Snow (who competed with him in Africa for ITN) as, “the most tenacious, even ruthless, correspondent I have ever worked against — the ultimate, objective professional.” That word, “professional,” is used here — was once always used — to describe ability rather than status.
Because Brian did not go to university. I seriously believe if he had he would have taken the tape for the stranded crew. He would have been professional in our modern sense — polished and polite — but unprofessional in Snow’s terms.
Snow, though he went, never graduated, and has also been professional without being, well, a professional. In their pomp these people found things out, asked simple direct questions, never let anyone get away with waffle. Their minds were uncluttered. They respected themselves and their craft. They thought they knew the difference between up and down, right and wrong, good and bad, male and female. They were not befuddled by questions asked for the sake of asking. Thoughts had for the sake of thinking.
And yet even as I write this, I know my heart is not in it. I learned nothing of much use to me at the LSE and yet, in truth, I learned everything. Crucially, I learned that I didn’t matter as much as I assumed I did. On a Saturday afternoon, sitting in the hugeness of the light-filled library and realising, courtesy of Eileen Barker’s moral philosophy course, that humans might not have free will. Rushing in on the tube for an early class with George Jones, doyen of politics professors, who hated what select committees were doing to the House of Commons. Bill Letwin (father of Oliver) who seemed to me to be impossibly Right-wing because he thought governments needed to be wary of involving themselves in economic life. David Starkey on how every other historian of his period was an idiot and a charlatan.
Here is the first lesson they all taught: they don’t care about you. For the first time in my life I was on my own. Of course, there are schoolteachers who don’t care about you either, but they had to pretend. At university in the 80s, they didn’t pretend. David Starkey was a good example, on the up in those days and with bigger fish to fry. And because of that: an electrifying teacher. I loved the idea that this was an opportunity I could feast on or pass up: the choice, for the first time ever, was mine.
So while I am sympathetic to the “too much education” school, I can’t in all honesty join it. University, done right, sorts your mind out. Confronts you with your own insignificance.
Of course, the education has to be real. Meaning lecturers must lecture and students must listen. Although the LSE in the 80s had its share of protesters and no-platformers and shouters about this and that, most of us understood that the trick was to listen. Humility is not much in fashion in the age of Twitter but it’s a good thing to have at university.
Perhaps that’s an argument for paying for the whole thing from general taxation again: we never thought we had ‘rights’ because we were not consumers. We were privileged — all of us at university in the pre-fees and pre-mass attendance age — and we knew it. This may have allowed those who taught us more space to be better at what they did, which was thinking more than teaching.
Nobody had to worry about being cancelled because they’d committed a micro-aggression. And this in turn encouraged eccentricity, intellectual heterodoxy, adventure. Most of the academics and most of the students actually believed in freedom. One of my lecturers was a supporter of the Cambodian mass murderer Pol Pot. Another (the wonderful Kurt Klappholz) had been in a Nazi Concentration camp. Neither of them prepared me to cover a coup, but they taught me to look twice.
No punting of course in Aldwych, no misty memories of dawn after the May Ball. But halcyon days. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Even if it’d made me a better journalist.
Justin Webb presents the Americast podcast and Today on Radio Four. His Panorama documentary “Trump the Sequel”, is available now on Iplayer
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SubscribeI appreciate that the article focussed more on the methodology rather than the underlying political position, but there is no getting away from the fact that Fabianism is, at heart, Socialism.
Does depend what one means by Socialism. Like Capitalism, Socialism is a spectrum.
The use of both phrases probably too manichean. It’s much more nuanced.
I guess that is true. I would say that the positions espoused by Jeremy Corbyn are Socialist. There was a time I would have said the same about Ed Miliband.
Fabianism is first and foremost dishonest. It isn’t called Fabianism because of pragmatism but because the Webbs intended to use Fabius-like tactics of distraction, delay, and attrition to deliver socialism rather than directly fighting and winning the battle of ideas and votes. It’s founding action was the disguised permeation of socialism through universities and institutions. A socialism managed by upper middle class types who considered themselves intellectual superiors. It is exactly that dishonesty and managerialism that is the cause of our division and debilitation today. It is the spread of Fabianist action throughout universities and institutions that has delivered their disfunction and slow collapse.
The author writes the “original Fabians found themselves in a fraught political climate. Faced with a complacent establishment that despised socialism” but neglects to mention socialism was despised by a majority of all classes and was never going to win at the ballot box. The innovation Fabianism offered was that instead of socialism by bullet they’d deliver it by gradualist stealth.
The author does acknowledge the gradualism of Fabian action but fails to extrapolate what this means: any current political moderation is a pretence, merely the next small but necessary gradual step on the road to socialism. By very many small steps they march through the institutions… Most who live in the UK will recognise the universities, civil service, and judiciary are now saturated with left wing politics exactly as the Fabians set out to do. This leads directly to our biggest crisis: a Fabian managerial class governing for all of us without any mandate and beyond accountability. I don’t totally doubt their well meaning sincerity, but a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim is still a tyranny.
As a footnote, the Webbs went on to write the very influential book Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? It was an entirely uncritical review of Stalin’s farming collectivisation, his creation of the gulags, and the purges of the 1930s. It was pure Soviet propaganda justifying mass murder written by two unapologetic socialists who just happened to be the founders of Fabianism. The Webbs and the motives of Fabians should be talked about in the same way we talk about National Socialists. There is never, ever any good in the greater good.
Indeed. The level of naivety in the article is disturbing. The author purports to advocate “sensible” policies (who doesn’t!) but there’s a dissonance between his interpretation of Fabianism and the authoritarian mindset that currently prevails.
What this suggests is that our so-called “intellectuals” are unable to free themselves from the very groupthink which they purport to be seeking to critique.
One of the ‘signifiers’ is the frequent use if the word “even”. If an author uses this word as a device to seek to elucidate their argument, i think of the term “special pleading”. I lost count of the number of times it occurs in this article.
‘What this suggests is that our so-called “intellectuals” are unable to free themselves from the very groupthink which they purport to be seeking to critique.’
I find this very true of the BBC. People like Andrew Marr seem utterly convinced of the self-evident nature of their position on any particular topic, to the extent that you get the impression he is oblivious to the concept that his position is necessarily a partial one and is reflective of a particular time, place and class.
Any deviation from the narrative (see John Lydon on his show recently) is seen as merely a lack of accurate information and perspective, benevolently bestowed upon us by people like Andrew.
Plus, you didn’t win. She had questions in advance. With the cat meme, it looks like the debate is working against Harris . And if Starmer’s moderation won, it seems to have been a pyrrhic victory. Joel is normally much better than this. The Fabians, Starmer and Harris are all extremists. Trump is much more of a centrist than any of them. A narcissistic celebrity for sure. But basically a centrist.
So true. There is never any good in the greater good.
As a Christian I firmly believe the fabian society along with most similar organisations and think tanks are bad at best and probably Satanically inspired.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the fabian society emblem is straight out the Bible… a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
They are a link in a chain in a movement to totalitarian control over humanity.
Whether they’re aware of it or not they are pawns of Satan.
For similar reasons Islam specifically hates Jews and Christians.
Anthony Hutton wrote well about part of this movement in his Skull and Bones book.
Marx was in to the occult I believe.
Yes, the Fabian Society coat of arms is a wolf in a sheep’s clothing. An odd choice for an organisation claiming not to have any ulterior motives… I’m reminded of That Mitchell and Webb Look comedy sketch where two SS soldiers ponder if they’re actually not the good guys because they have a skull and crossbones on their caps.
“our biggest crisis: a Fabian managerial class governing for all of us without any mandate and beyond accountability”.
True enough but when has the managerial class ever had any mandate or been accountable? I mean anywhere, ever, from modern Britain to ancient China? Sounds like hankering for a time when the ruling class shared your worldview rather than a memory of a golden age when mandarins implemented the will of the people and were held to account when they failed.
I didn’t think the author really understood what Fabianism is at all. I hope he reads your excellent comment.
Pretty first-rate analysis.
How did they manage this practice? In a word: moderation.
There’s something bland and weak about this as a way forward. I can’t think of any part of anyone’s history that’s taken a successful leap with moderation. Moderation feels like a watered down version of life itself. It just doesn’t feel likely that human progress has been the result of moderation. Circumstances may force upon us, without us choosing, something in between as the road forward (which may look like moderation in retrospect) but only because the two extremes confronted each other. Choosing moderation seems to me a weak foundation for leaping into the future.
And yet it’s the essence of Britishness and has been for some centuries.
And look at the state of the country.
Not true.
The British Empire wasn’t acquired by moderation !
In those days we executed Admiral Byng for not fighting at Menorca. His moderation may have been reasonable, but it certainly wasn’t acceptable in those days.
Of course, these days someone like Gareth Southgate will doubtless be getting a knighthood for his exemplary moderation in not taking the risk of winning at football.
One could argue even the British Empire was more moderate than some without entire rose tinted specs.
The point more that our politics has emerged through evolution and not revolution. You have to go back to 1640s for a revolution, and even then we reverted back within a decade or so to a much more organic development. Whilst Europe has history of convulsions we are much more often moderate and tolerant
1688
Common sense, moderation, practical solutions and less performative rhetoric. Fairly radical stuff at the moment.
Not going to play well of course with the Unherd base.
You could of course tell us why, rather than stating it as fact. There’s a laughable op-ed written by Gordon Brown in today’s Guardian… that right JW, The Guardian. Those ghastly proles not voting the right way again.
I suppose we can give the Fabians a break when they were formed but it’s been proved time and time again that ideologies fail and utopia cannot exist because of paradox. It’s funny how utopia always requires coercion then authoritarianism, which leads to corruption and collapse. You’d thought “enlightened” people would know this.
And not very Fabian.
If you think that’s Fabianism you desperately need to read some history.
This article meanders all over the place and is in places, downright silly. We are meant to agree with a lot of the proposed ideas because they seem calm and quiet and sensible. It forgets one very important point: vested interests.
I agree with the author that the climate change lobby has run out of steam but Ed isn’t going to turn around and say, “Let’s slow things down a bit”, because he would then lose control and lose status. The same is true of the scientists who advise him. The feeling of power, of control, gets in the way of all of these cosy ideas. In London the mayor is using his power to control people, to make them do stupid things, to have power over them. He will not give that up. Nor would his successors (if he would ever allow a successor).
Fabianism, or Communism, has failed everywhere because people want power over other people.
The vast majority of the public understand that you cannot stop immigration altogether. Not without addressing a multiplicity of issues over generations.
I know the author is using it to present a balanced pro-Fabian argument, whilst having a swipe at the proles. But it’s a malicious lie.
Freddie, please don’t let this lazy stuff through.
Immigration whilst maintaining a national culture and a sustainable welfare state should not be beyond the wit of our political class, Tory, Labour or Fabian, when we have 70 years experience of what works and what doesn’t.
Why they ignore that unrivalled experience, in favour of untested treaties and international compacts to signal a nation’s virtue, is a mystery to everyone. Maybe let’s have an article on that.
You think Britain is a racist country? Name one country with a welfare state and a better track record that we could learn from. Without including those in the EU that have now erected manned borders and commenced deportations.
The Webbs famously espoused eugenics and selective breeding programmes. Doesn’t scream ‘moderate’ to me.
Yes. Time someone pointed that out. They were also massive fans of Stalin who conspired to keep news of the holomodor out of the media.
Their worst crime though, both then and now, was to hijack the Labour Party and turn it into a vehicle for middle class busybodying. We’re still living with the consequences.
All the progressives were. Global warming policies will be viewed in the same way 100 years from now.
Fabianism as our way foreward?….I hope not. Fabianism was not really “pragmatic”; it was just a bit less frenzied than more recent iterations of the ideology of “Progress”….(ie progress brought about by political means rather than as a by-product of technology and enterprise). And the Bloomsbury set were brimful of vanity and sentimentality. A much better pointer to what we need would be Edmund Burke. “Edmund Burke – father of modern conservatism – expressed this caution in this axiom: “frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.” Few people are outright opposed to political change but Progressives seem permanently hungry for it and believe that politics is the way to make it happen. Recent history suggests that they are right in this belief but paradoxically are unlikely to actually be all that happy with the changes they have helped bring about.” https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/mrs-thatcher-and-the-good-life
lol at the USA having a ‘lively welfare state’
Moderate Communists. But immoderate eugenicists.
“and Kamala Harris proved in her debate with Donald Trump — remaining level-headed wins debates and often elections.”
Are you referring to that ABC inspired hit job debate, fact checking Trump, while letting Kamala coast? Might want to check out her recent solo interview by an ABC affiliate in Philadelphia for another take!
As Keir Starmer has shown — and Kamala Harris proved in her debate with Donald Trump — remaining level-headed wins debates and often elections.
It was at this point that I scrolled to the comments. Did I miss anything of value between that line and here?
Not much.
Kotkin uses “Fabianism” as a synonym for – variously – gradualism, pragmatism and realism. This is not the historical or, for those who carry it on, current meaning of Fabianism, which is a centrist branch of socialism with specific political aims.
You could equally well have a gradualist right wing group or a pragmatic anti-authoritarian movement, but they wouldn’t be Fabians.
Perhaps Kotkin would be better using the term “Fabius-ism” but really I think he’s trying to lump too many concepts together.
While I acknowledge and share the rejection of Fabianism and its founders, the article brings up good points that are hard to reject. To what degree are those ideas Fabianist? I guess avoiding to mention the Fabians alltogether would have spared the author most of the flak he attracted. He must have had a different idea when he wrote the piece. But which?
Most of the Commenters miss a very important point.
Here in the US, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used Socialism (lite) to save Capitalism (viscous) from its own excesses. Most of his programs failed or never got through Congress. But enough of them stuck that we went on to help win a very serious war and then had the best decades of our existence. Social Security, a sharply graduated income tax, fair labor laws, farm security, industrial recovery, banking regulation and deposit insurance, etc; without FDR we would be unrecognizable.
(Unfortunately, in the 80s and 90s various “leaders” came along and hobbled most of it. Then we got globalization. And here we are, barely limping along.)
The “New Deal” might have been necessary given the conditions that prevailed in the 1930s, but the US fortunately moved in a rather more capitalist direction thereafter.
“And here we are, barely limping along.”
Whatever issues we face, Socialism isn’t the answer.
Indeed. It was especially the renewed New Deal policies and the sound agreements of Bretton Woods after the war that brought the most stable period in recent history. Trade was facilitated, innovation was very high but capital and speculation was restrained. The backlash in the 80s against this system has been explained as simple class warfare by many scholars. The Rand corporation estimated that about 50 trillion was transferred from the lower classes to the upper class in the first waves of neoliberalisation.
“Centrist socialists”….so the Fabians incrementally screw up everything, and destroy their society slowly and respectfully…no thanks.
When one considers the leadership imposed damage being inglicted on the West we are apparently already led by wolves in sheep’s clothing, the symbol of the Fabians
If anything I think that there is actually way too little radical change in the face of a system that essentially already collapsed after 2008. Yes, there is a lot of radial rhetoric – especially since that 2008 crisis – but it mostly just remains rhetoric. The extreme center, first and foremost, aims to protect the status quo as it was established in the 80s. It seems they rather drag everyone down with them than allowing serious reforms.
The problem with planning to be in the middle is that the extremes tell you where it’s at.
I think this article portrays the Fabians as benign and enlightening. But if one delves into the research, their legacy becomes rather more pernicious.
last thing we need if the Fabians, David Lammy say he is one and I would not trust him as far as I could throw him, Zionist rat.
Fabian scientic rationalism and gradulist socialism has included advocacy of euthanasia, colonial imperialism and some nasty racist attitudes, while its influence on the British Labour has not always been beneficent.