OXFORD University has been branded a ‘bastion of white, middle class, southern privilege’.

That might not be the most surprising news you will have read all week, but it is depressing nevertheless to find that being posh or from the Home Counties can still secure you a better start in life than if you come from a modest background in the North-East.

London and the South-East made up 46.7 per cent of UK applications to Oxford between 2015 and 2017, (and 47.9 per cent of students admitted), while the North-East accounted for 2 per cent, (2.3 per cent admitted).

MP David Lammy, who has repeatedly criticised Oxbridge over their records on admissions, said the latest figures showed little had changed in recent years.

We should all care who goes to our top universities because these people end up running the country. Durham, Teesside, Sunderland, Newcastle and York are all great places to study, but Oxford and Cambridge are still widely recognised as being Britain’s homes of excellence in learning.

A top quality degree stamped with an ancient crest is not all that is at stake.

The reality is these that institutions sit at the very heart of the British establishment.

An Oxbridge degree can still be a passport to the upper echelons of power and public life.

The two universities have produced most of our prime ministers, the majority of our senior judges and civil servants, and many people in the media.

At a time when London and the South-East dominate our economy, Oxford and Cambridge are failing to live up to their responsibilities as national universities.