Tom Tugendhat: belief

Transcript context

…Now, your town of Tonbridge has a very famous private school. Does that system need general reform in the UK, or is it just fine as is? No, look, I think it has reformed an awful lot. The impressions about what a school does in a community, I think, are very often mistaken. Tonbridge School not only gives out large numbers of bursaries — so a lot of the kids who go there don’t pay full fees. Quite a lot — there’s a fair few who don’t pay anything at all. Also, the school has a really important role in the community. Its sports track and its sports facilities are used by the whole town at various different points, and very often for either low or free. A lot of the other schools use the theater and use their facilities like that. And they run something which is relatively common in the United Kingdom called the Combined Cadet Force, and various other kids are involved in elements of that as well. It’s not a standalone. Forty, fifty years ago, it would’ve been a very standalone institution, but the fees would’ve been relatively lower. Now the institution is much more integrated in many ways into the town. It’s true that the fees are higher. They are very high, but what it offers the rest of the community is also a huge amount. Putting aside present company, who is the great unselected prime minister in British history?…

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