Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference

by William MacAskill

However, most people don’t try to enter politics, and the representation of politicians in the UK is highly skewed towards people of certain backgrounds. In particular, graduates of Oxford are dramatically over-represented within UK politics, with graduates of PPE especially over-represented. For example, both David Cameron and Ed Miliband earned a degree in PPE from Oxford. Of the 650 members of Parliament, over a hundred studied at Oxford (despite there being only 3,000 graduates every year), of which thirty-five studied PPE (despite there being only 200 PPE graduates each year). Of Cabinet ministers (those MPs who hold executive power) 32% studied PPE at Oxford, and of the thirteen prime ministers since 1945, nine studied at Oxford and three of those studied PPE.