Credit to KPMG – more needs to be done in the City to bring working class people in

In the City, where one leading institution goes, others will follow, writes Chris Blackhurst

If those in the city say they don’t know whether they’re hiring a working class person or not, they are talking rubbish (PA)

At the City law firm where I worked as a trainee solicitor, I was once taken to one side by a senior partner and told (I was asked but it was really an order) to have “a word” with another member of my intake.

He was in the habit of wearing dark coloured shirts and the bosses did not like it. While there was no dress code, the men all wore plain white shirts or in some cases, those awful blue things with white collar and cuffs. Never, did they don the purple, navy or God forbid, black, that my fellow junior was wearing.

It also happened that he was a Scouser, from a working-class background. He was also bright, cleverer than many of the partners he was serving. Like a lemon, I did as instructed. It was embarrassing. He did change. Try as he might, and however able, he was never going to make it to partner. He later left to go elsewhere.