I’ve always admired Jimmy Carr’s line on the distinction between old-fashioned communism and the newer, woker sort. ‘Instead of trying to redistribute wealth, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to want to do, they want to redistribute status,’ he explains. ‘And that is a recipe for… madness.’

Beyond the pork barrel tone we’ll have to get used to over the next few years, the most remarkable thing about Burnham’s wheeze is his ambition to equalise status between different educational tracks

Beyond the pork barrel tone we’ll have to get used to over the next few years, the most remarkable thing about Burnham’s wheeze is his ambition to equalise status between different educational tracks

Perhaps one shouldn’t be surprised at Carr’s talent for the astute given his educational pedigree. Before becoming Britain’s leading offensive comedian, Carr graduated from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, with a first-class degree in social and political science. After a period of marketing for Shell, he was drawn into comedy, no doubt due to the steady paychecks and attractive pension scheme.

Carr is right to identify the particular American urge to level status between different groups. But the same impulse has a longer history in Britain and is currently being indulged by new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, a near contemporary of Carr’s at Cambridge, where he studied English at Fitzwilliam College.

Burnham’s early weeks in office appear to be a radical experiment in seeing if you can organise a........

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