As someone who has been quite rightly much maligned over the years for his lazy, unacademic, non journalistic writing and occasional ranting, I’ve got to say that it was très reassuring to be informed by this morning’s Today Programme that the learned dons at the UCL and the LSE have presented empirical evidence for something that I’d written as a toss-away self-evident fact way back in the spring of 2002.

In an article entitled “PhD in Life Anyone” (which later became the 18th and in many ways most controversial chapter in “The Carin’ Sharin’ Chronicles” – particularly among my ‘better educated’ multi-degreed friends and readers) I said:

“The biggest con about the whole education system, is that when Joe or Jo Workingclass leaves University and starts looking for that pot of gold at the end of their self-financed educational rainbow, they discover that the First Class honours degree that they sweated blood and bought their own books to achieve, comes a poor second to connections. That Prince Edward and a thousand dullards just like him, have already been lined up for all the best gigs. But as long as Mr or Ms J. Workingclass BA understands and accepts how it all works, they’ll be given a shot at avoiding the minimum wage.”

And what do you know, this morning while I was eating my Frosties, the Social Mobility Commission announced the shocking conclusion of their research into “Social Mobility, the Class Pay Gap and Intergenerational Wordlessness”, which concluded that the average UK professional from a working-class background is paid 17% or £6,800 less each year than colleagues with more privileged upbringings (the “class pay gap” – as the BBC described it – is highest in finance at £13,713, followed by the medical profession at £10,218).

So I would like to thank the world of academia for the Herculean effort it has put in and all of the solid statistical work – something my intuitive thinking has always so clearly lacked – to prove once and for all that I ain’t quite as stupid as my working class origins and three ‘O’ levels might suggest. However, just so there’s no confusion, I won’t be accepting any honorary degrees – no matter how prestigious – because as I say earlier in the same article “the academic establishment insists on perpetuating the myth that it has a monopoly on the provision of knowledge” and I’d hate for it to appropriate my genius by belatedly embracing me.

Anyone who’d like to read some of the other prescient thoughts I had around the turn of the century on subjects as diverse as Eastern philosophy, 9/11 and unprotected sex with motorcycles, can pick up a copy of my critically acclaimed book from The Rider’s Digest shop for a ridiculously reasonable eight quid including p&p (or if you’re a ‘damn the expense’ type and you’d like to read all the great reviews you can buy it from me via Amazon for another 80p).

Carin’ Sharin’ Dave