“Telling children that hard work gets you to the top is simply a lie,” says top barrister Hashi Mohamed.
Not the most thrilling thing that teachers want to hear.
“It’s not true and we need stop saying it.”
But he did very well. He got to the top against the odds.
“I attended some of the worst performing schools in inner-city London and was raised exclusively on state benefits.”
He worked very hard, went to Oxford and joined the Bar. Ah, but that was a while back. Last week he presented a BBC radio programme, Adventures in Social Mobility – and mighty glum it was. He claimed that getting to the top is much more difficult now. Why? Mere exam success won’t cut it. You’ve got also to be – or sound – middle or upper class, have the right cultural capital and codes, a confident aura and be able to afford those university fees.
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