From the archive: ‘A nursery of the Commons’: how the Oxford Union created today’s ruling political class

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  This is The Guardian. The Guardian Archive Long Read Hello, my name is Simon Cooper.

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  I'm the author of the article and nursery of the commons how the oxford union created stays ruling political class is taken from my book chums how a tiny cost of oxford stories took over the uk.

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  I'm also a financial times journalist.

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  The genesis of this article the night when i began to think about the grip of oxford on british politics and especially oxford's role in causing brexit was the night of the brexit referendum.

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  When i set up till dawn watching tv and horror trying to absorb what was happening and

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  as i saw the main characters traits across my tv screen.

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  Both the leavers the winners like boris johnson michael gove dominic cummings jacob reese mogg dan hanan but also the leading remainers george osborne and david cameron i thought hang on i know.

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  these people i've been seeing some of them around since i was a teenager

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  because they were all at oxford university either with me or just before me and so seeing that made me think oxford especially oxford in the eighties was a key to understanding brexit when the article came out in 2022 the oxford boys were very much in power boris johnson was prime minister And you had a very public school and Oxford Tory cabinet

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  since then we've had three more Oxford Prime Minister's Oxford educated in Liz Truss,

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  Rishi Sunak and now Keir Starmer who was at Oxford as a graduate student.

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  But I do feel that at the moment the grip of this Oxford cast on power is much weaker than it was three years ago.

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  The Labour Cabinet is a bit more other universities and state schools.

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  But I don't think that this cast that I described is dead.

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  I think it's very likely that Boris Johnson will take back the Conservative Party before the next election.

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  And so then we could have a rerun of this chums phenomenon that I described in the article.

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  Welcome to The Guardian Long Read,

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  showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking.

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  For the text version of this and all our long reads, go to theguardian.com forward slash long read.

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  When I arrived at Oxford in 1988 to study history and German,

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