Bevan was famously driven by his ferocious sympathy for people who did 'real work.'
Do you think that sympathy originated at the Central Labour College, or during his time as a trade unionist?
Likewise with Attlee, whose views were conservative in spite of his impressively broad academic education, and were only changed when he worked with and for people who did 'real work.'
In fact "real work" - cf TBG: "a white collar working class who do crappy menial office jobs - working in call centres, accounts, basic IT maintenance, salesandmarketing, training." - is likely to give you a competence in a few routine skills and very little general understanding of the world, while a GOOD academic education can quickly expand horizons and understanding enormously.
Clearly I was talking about much of "real work" today and its routine narrowness. Nor was I saying that education is the only thing that counts. In my reply to you I said that general experience is important and I noted that the experience Atlee had in the East End was very important.
Having "sympathy" is one thing, understanding what to do about it and how to operate in complex political situations at a national and international level is another. Clearly Bevan went beyond being sympathetic to workers, as no doubt most workers were, to get a broader education which included the study of Marx, which he thought very important. Obviously unions thought it was not enough for their representatives to have their hearts in the right place, which is why they sponsored the education of people like Bevan. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
