I have a bit of an odd non-bandom question (so feel free to ignore). I've been thinking about the class stratification of schools in the US based on town and neighborhood zoning. (More expensive houses in more expensive towns = better schools that are not accessible to lower-income families.) Is this a thing in the UK? Also I vaguely remember an article a while ago that mentioned that UK politicians sending their kids to private schools is frowned upon while in the US it's almost expected.
This is definitely a thing in the UK. In fact, house prices are pretty much solely defined on school catchment areas. Therefore richer folks get to send their kids to the more prestigious “state schools” by virtue of buying an expensive house near that school, but this isn’t an option for lower income families.
[Side note: there’s a jargon issue here since in the UK the term “public school” actually means the opposite. It means a fee-paying private school, but for historical reasons, the name has become meaningless. What Americans would call a “public school” is known as a “state school” in the UK, so for clarity, I’m just going to say “private” and “state” to distinguish between the two types. English be like that sometimes.]
So people in the UK expect the Conservatives to send their offspring off to private school because that’s just the mentality of the right - everyone for themselves and if you can afford it why not? But the Labour politicians (the left) are expected to support the public education system because their priorities are supposed to be aligned with the greater good and what’s best for society etc. In recent years, however, there has been a move towards all politicians sending their kids to private school because they’re a bunch of hypocrites but no surprise there.