For decades, British politics has lived in the shadow of a major failure of social and economic policy: the imbalance between graduates and those who don’t go to university. 

Many politicians have understood the need to do better for the ‘other 50%’ who don’t go to higher education. But few have delivered real change. 

From Boris Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ to Keir Starmer’s newfound focus on ‘higher-level skills,’ the goal has remained constant: to provide a better deal for those who don’t go to ‘uni’. 

Yet despite the speeches and the promises, the divide remains a major fault line of our politics. It explains Brexit (grads were Remain, non-grads Leave) and the crumbling of the Red Wall – Labour is increasingly the party of metropolitan graduates. It persists because no one has properly addressed slow wage growth and a perception of being ignored among many non-graduates.  

What if the great rebalancing – that fabled parity of esteem – is delivered not by policymakers but by Artificial Intelligence?

The Reform UK platform has strong appeal for those who didn’t go to university and who feel alienated from a national conversation dominated by graduates and their liberal values. The British Social Attitudes study found that – across all age groups – only 5% of graduates voted Reform at the last election; it was 25% for non-grads. 

In Whitehall, a graduate-dominated Civil Service has always struggled to take vocational education and training seriously – the promise of  ‘parity of esteem’ for further and vocational education is seen as a bad joke by many in FE.  At the highest level of economic policymaking, the Treasury  naturally leans into........

© The Spectator