Programme Information

In one crucial respect, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are a marriage made in heaven: Eton and Oxford meets Westminster and Cambridge. But Andrew Neil wonders if their rise to Downing Street symbolises a change in British politics – the decline in social mobility.

Andrew Neil is a grammar school boy from a working-class family who has made it to the top in political journalism. He believes that he – and others of his generation – had a route to success that's now blocked. Britain's post-war political meritocracy came to an end, he thinks, after the abolition of the grammar schools.

In Posh And Posher – Why Public School Boys Run Britain, he hits the road on a personal journey to discover why our political leaders from all parties are emerging from an ever-narrower pool. Andrew crosses Britain, meeting members of the political class as well as people on the ground worried about the new elite. He visits public schools and comprehensives to reveal the gaping achievement gap which gives the privately educated such a head start. He goes to Oxford to find out why this one institution has produced half the Cabinet and more than 100 MPs. And he shows how young researchers and special advisers to senior politicians – often with no experience in the real world – have a fast track to the top themselves.

For 33 years, from 1964 to 1997, from Harold Wilson to John Major, every single British Prime Minister of all parties went to a state school. But now public school boys seem firmly back in charge again. In this very personal journey Andrew Neil questions if their rise symbolises the decline of social mobility in the British society and asks whether our politics is set to get posher still.

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Being Human – Lia Ep 1/8

Sunday 23 January

9.00-10.00pm BBC THREE and BBC HD

Lia (Lacey Turner) reveals a dark secret to Mitchell (Aidan Turner)

When you've spent the last few years sharing a house with a vampire and werewolves, you would imagine life couldn't get any weirder.

But Annie, the ghost who has so far escaped the clutches of death in BBC Three's hit drama Being Human, finds herself in even stranger surroundings at the start of the third series: trapped in purgatory, waiting to hear her fate.

Meanwhile, Annie's best friends and former housemates – werewolf couple George and Nina, and reformed vampire Mitchell – are hoping for a fresh start by moving to Wales. Surely if anywhere can provide a haven for them, a place where they can pass under the radar, it's the seaside town of Barry?

Leaving the memories of their much-loved house in Bristol behind, George, Nina and Mitchell settle into their new home – a kitsch B&B named Honolulu Heights that boasts many benefits for supernatural sharers; a large basement providing a safe and sheltered environment on a full moon, for one.

Mitchell, however, is finding it hard to settle in. He's struggling with the guilt of his bloodthirsty revenge at the end of the last series, but – most importantly – he's missing Annie.

Determined to get her back Mitchell enters purgatory, where he meets Lia. Though sweet and sparky, Lia lets Mitchell into a dark secret that threatens to haunt him day and night, and to tear his friendships apart...

Annie is played by Lenora Crichlow, George by Russell Tovey, Nina by Sinead Keenan, Mitchell by Aidan Turner and Lia by Lacey Turner.

Being Human is simulcast on the award-winning BBC HD channel – the BBC's High Definition channel available through Freesat channel 109, Freeview channel 54, Sky channel 169 and Virgin Media channel 187.

MO