Not quite
But in a recent entertaining debate in the US, it was proposed that three members of the Ivy league – Harvard, Yale and Princeton – be shut down altogether. A fanciful notion but it clearly gave rise to lots of deep-seated prejudice – largely from those who weren’t admitted in the past it would seem.
A similar proposition here in relation to Oxford and Cambridge (with all of their resources being distributed across the Russell Group, presumably) would attract even more enthusiastic (if misguided) support would be my guess.
What’s wrong with deep seated prejudice anyhoo?
Oxford, LSE, Imperial and Cambridge would probably constitute the UK equivilant.
Don’t need to shut them down – just introduce post-qualification admissions and then have a ballot to allocate places….
Then you can really hear a squeal….