- Author hit out at ‘new political elites’ who have no practical life experience
- Former spy said ‘we choose our elite horrible badly’ and there is little hope
- His scathing comments on what he deems to be the ‘wrong set’ ruling Britain
Bestselling author John Le Carré has hit out at ‘new political elites’ who have no practical experience of life, as he warned that the ‘social contract is bust in this country’.
The former spy said that ‘we choose our elite horribly badly’ and there is little hope for the future if private education continues to ‘command the scene’.
The 85-year-old’s scathing comments on what he deems to be the ‘wrong set’ ruling Britain come despite the fact he attended Sherborne School and taught languages at Eton College in the 1950s.
He told The Sunday Times: ‘We’re getting people who start their political careers at university and go in as special assistants to MPs, like those ridiculous people who were advising May [Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill]. We are run by the wrong elite.’
Former spy John Le Carré said that ‘we choose our elite horribly badly’ and there is little hope for the future if private education continues to ‘command the scene’. File photo
Asked if he describes himself as left-wing, the author of The Night Manager and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold said: ‘I just describe myself by my own standards as a clear-sighted humanist.
‘It’s extraordinary to realise that Clement Attlee commanded a regiment in the war. Even [Sir Edward] Heath had experience of the war.
‘It isn’t the war that’s the defining factor, it was having to work with men and women of all classes. They were blooded, those people. They knew whereof they spoke. What we now have is the wrong set.
Asked if he describes himself as left-wing, the author of The Night Manager and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold said: ‘I just describe myself by my own standards as a clear-sighted humanist.
‘Surely the definition of a decent society is: one, how it chooses its elite; and, two, how it looks after its losers. Now we choose our elite horribly badly and, as long as private education commands the scene, don’t talk to me about levelling the playing field – the social contract is bust in this country.’
In a wide-ranging interview, he also blasted the current political climate, saying that he wrote his latest novel A Legacy Of Spies – his first novel for four years – in ‘a bit of a frenzy through Trump and Brexit.’
He continued: ‘I despise the whole Brexit operation… One government after another blamed Europe for its own failures because they never invested in the concept of a united Europe.’