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Sue Gray was back in the news last weekend.
苏•格雷(Sue Gray)上周末再次登上新闻头条。
The former top civil servant has in fact rarely been out of the news since she unexpectedly quit to become chief of staff to Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, last year.
自去年意外辞职，成为工党领袖基尔•斯塔默(Keir Starmer)爵士的幕僚长以来，这位前高级公务员实际上一直处于新闻焦点之中。
This time, the Mail on Sunday devoted nearly a whole page to the woman it called “a real-life Labour version of CJ Cregg”, the fictional White House chief of staff in The West Wing TV series.
这一次，《星期日邮报》(Mail on Sunday)几乎用了整整一页来报道这位被称为“现实版工党的CJ Cregg”的女性，她是电视剧《白宫风云》(The West Wing)中虚构的白宫幕僚长。
This was small beer for a person who has been accused of everything from plotting to oust Boris Johnson to spying for the British government in Northern Ireland, which she of course denies.
对于一个被指控从策划推翻鲍里斯•约翰逊到在北爱尔兰为英国政府从事间谍活动的人来说，这件事不过是小菜一碟，她当然否认了这些指控。
But for me, one of the most remarkable things about Gray is not what she has done but what she has failed to do: go to university.
但对我来说，关于格雷最引人注目的并不是她所做过的事，而是她未曾做过的事：未曾上过大学。
I still remember the jolt of hearing a former Whitehall mandarin mention this on the BBC in 2022, when Gray was a second permanent secretary in the influential Cabinet Office. That made her one of the most senior officials in the Office, ranking just below the permanent secretaries who run Whitehall departments.
我仍然记得2022年，当格雷在有影响力的内阁办公室(Cabinet Office)担任第二常任秘书时，一位前白厅官员在BBC上提到这一点，那时的震惊仍历历在目。这使她成为内阁办公室中最高级别的官员之一，仅次于负责管理白厅各部门的常任秘书。
For context, the number of permanent secretaries who never went to university around this time was zero, says a 2019 report by the Sutton Trust social mobility charity. Most went to one of just two universities, Oxford or Cambridge, as did most senior judges, cabinet ministers and diplomats.
根据2019年由社会流动性慈善机构萨顿信托(Sutton Trust)发布的报告，此时期从未上过大学的常任秘书人数为零。他们大多数人都是在牛津或剑桥这两所大学中的一所就读，同样的情况也适用于大多数高级法官、内阁大臣和外交官。
For context again, the share of the general population going to Oxbridge was less than 1 per cent and just 7 per cent went to the private schools that educated most permanent secretaries, top judges and Lords.
再次提供背景，去牛津剑桥的普通人口比例不到1%，而只有7%的人去了那些培养了大多数常任秘书、高级法官和贵族的私立学校。
Education is not the only measure of class. Parents’ occupations matter too. But Gray is still an outlier in a country where a small elite still has a big say in how things are run. The Labour party she is trying to get elected has plans to smash a “class ceiling” that by some measures is a bigger problem in the UK than some comparable nations.
教育并非衡量社会阶层的唯一标准，父母的职业同样重要。但在一个少数精英依然对国家运行有重大影响的国家，格雷仍然是个例外。她所属的工党正在努力争取当选，并计划打破“阶级天花板”，这在英国是一个相较于其他类似国家更严重的问题。
But such plans are not new. Calls for a “classless society” were made 30 years ago by then Conservative leader, John Major, the last UK prime minister who didn’t go to university.
但这样的计划并不新鲜。30年前，当时的保守党领袖约翰•梅杰(John Major)曾呼吁建立一个“无阶级社会”，他是英国最后一位没有上过大学的首相。
What is new is that some employers are finally starting to address the problem. In the process, they are revealing some important things about working life in modern Britain, like the fact that class can have a bigger effect on your chance of being promoted than gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
最近，一些雇主终于开始正视这个问题。在这个过程中，他们揭示了现代英国职场生活的一些重要事实，比如阶级对你晋升机会的影响可能比性别、种族或性取向更大。
The UK business of professional services firm KPMG revealed this in a groundbreaking analysis of the career paths of 16,500 of its partners and employees it published just over a year ago.
专业服务公司毕马威(KPMG)的英国业务在一年多前发布了一份开创性的分析，该分析涵盖了其16500名合伙人和员工的职业发展路径。
The firm measured class by checking what an employee’s highest earning parent did for a living, a method used by PwC, the Slaughter and May law firm and other groups tackling social class diversity.
KPMG’s data showed people from working class families took an average 19 per cent longer to shift up a grade, or as much as one year, compared to those from higher socio-economic backgrounds. Progress was even slower for working class employees who were a( female or b) had an ethnic minority background.
毕马威的数据显示，来自工薪阶层家庭的人与来自社会经济地位较高的人相比，平均需要多出19%的时间，也就是多达一年的时间，才能提升一个级别。对于工薪阶层中的a) 女性或b) 具有少数民族背景的员工，他们的晋升速度甚至更慢。
Interestingly, the class gap reversed in KPMG’s highest reaches, where working class employees advanced faster. It’s not clear why, says Jenny Baskerville, KPMG UK’s head of inclusion, diversity and equity. But she told me these people might be “so exceptional” that, once they finally reach leadership positions, they “lean into who they are” and make their way to partner level faster.
有趣的是，在毕马威英国的最高层，阶级差距反而发生了逆转，工人阶级的员工晋升更快。毕马威英国的包容性、多样性和公平负责人珍妮•巴斯克维尔(Jenny Baskerville)表示，目前还不清楚原因。但她告诉我，这些人可能是“如此出色”，一旦他们最终达到领导职位，他们会“坚持自我”，从而更快地晋升到合伙人级别。
For all that, there is still a hefty UK class pay gap. One study puts it at £6,291 — or 12 per cent — for working class professionals. It is nearly three times bigger in the finance sector, which is thought to have the highest class pay gap of any profession.
Regulators have so far shied away from making social class reporting mandatory, fearing the reporting burden in a sector where few firms collect the necessary data. Experts say this needs to change when students from disadvantaged backgrounds with a first class degree from a top university are still less likely to get an elite job than more privileged students with poor second class degrees. I agree.
监管机构至今一直避免强制实施社会阶层报告，因为他们担心在一个很少有公司收集必要数据的行业中，这将增加报告负担。专家认为，这种情况需要改变，因为来自贫困背景的学生即使在顶尖大学获得一等学位，也比获得二等学位的富裕学生更难找到精英工作。我对此表示赞同。
Groups such as KPMG are showing that once class backgrounds are known, employers can figure out who is being affected and what can be done to make sure all talented people advance. That’s not just fair. It is also just good business.
像毕马威这样的集团正在展示，一旦了解了阶级背景，雇主就能明确谁受到了影响，以及可以采取什么措施来确保所有有才华的人都能得到提升。这不仅仅是公平的，也是明智的商业策略。