The fancy college I went to sent a lot of people into the UK Civil Service. The latter had a fast track program for those who passed a fairly rigorous set of ex

The fancy college I went to sent a lot of people into the UK Civil Service. The latter had a fast track program for those who passed a fairly rigorous set of exams. The thing is, those exams tested for a certain kind of confident general intelligence, and the upper echelons of the UK university system was extremely, extremely good at producing people like this-- but that didnt mean they had deep knowledge of anything, or that they had a moral compass, or even believed anything in particular. By way of example, in my college, you had to read some books, write essays taking a position, and defend it in real time to your tutor and a few peers. Twice a week for three years. You very rapidly learned how to pivot an argument, adapt to changing ground, even reverse your position. Do you see now why people like Boris Johnson are so eloquent without actually saying anything of meaning? That is the entire elite political class of Britain. And they are served by the same types of people. Its a blessing and a curse that civil servants have the intellectual flexibility to say the sun rises in the East to one minister and in the West to another, but that's how you get Sir Humphrey.