Is an English degree good preparation to become Prime Minister?

Not on its own...

In a few weeks, the UK will have (probably) a new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, who will be the first Prime Minister with an English Literature degree. Some people think this is going to give him a real advantage as a leader.¹

Blake Morrison wrote about the “distinguished line” of literary politicians. Giles Coren thinks Burnham’s English degree gives him a “grown-up hinterland”. Lord Smith, a former Secretary of Culture, wrote that there is “no better preparation for a career in public life than English literature, because it tells you more about character, relationships, society, joy, sorrow, emotion and intelligence than anything else ever could.” Even John Mullan takes it for granted that Burnham’s English degree is a good thing. (Mullan taught Burnham.)

But none of them compares the benefits of studying English with the alternatives!

Will these same people say that it was beneficial for George Osborne to have studied History rather than Economics? Was Harold MacMillan a great Prime Minister because he read a lot of Austen and Trollope?² Lord Smith’s PhD was about Wordsworth and Coleridge. I’m sure he remembers J.S. Mill’s remark that Coleridge’s genius turned to buffoonery when he discussed the national debt.

Of course, people who love English Literature wish to defend their subject at a time of decline. But none of these arguments relate the benefits of an English degree to what is required of a PM. How will his love of Middlemarch help Burnham with the public finances, the bond market, the need for planning reform, two decades of minimal productivity, or decisions about the education and health systems? No-one can say. Apparently he loves Larkin, a poet who would not mistake an English Literature degree as preparation for appointing ministers, dealing with scientific experts, and handling international negotiations.

Judgement is domain-specific (something that Middlemarch knows very well, ironically). It cannot be easily transferred from an English tutorial to Whitehall without a lot of other conditions being met. English graduates have very little knowledge of economics. Nor does the subject tell them anything about how government works. Relying on their judgement could easily go wrong! Blake Morrison’s list is telling. After Disraeli (hardly a model we want to emulate!) and Churchill (again, outside the war, rather a mixed bag!), he gets down to “Jeffrey Archer, Edwina Currie and Ann Widdecombe.” He does not seem to be joking.

I wonder if Morrison would add Boris Johnson to his list, who has a first in Classics from Oxford? During the pandemic, Johnson didn’t know the difference between percentages and percentage points. Will any of the people celebrating Burnham’s love of George Eliot tell us that Johnson’s love of Homer and Shakespeare improved the way he handled Covid?

There are many wonderful benefits to studying—and loving—English Literature. I have written about them myself. But they are supplementary to many other, necessary, conditions for being a Prime Minister. It is a worthy addition to a true knowledge of government and political economy, not a substitute. The fact that English Literature’s advocates don’t make that distinction anywhere in their arguments might be taken as another negative signal…

1. This is nothing new. All the highbrows like Mary Warnock, who seriously disliked Mrs. Thatcher, also seriously believed that someone like Virginia Woolf would be a better Prime Minister, someone with a highly refined intellect and feelings.

2. (a lot of that reading was done in the middle of the day while he was PM—it didn’t stop the crisis…)