Willie; you're assuming that your interlocutors have not 'got on' as you put it. How do you know? From what I know of some of the contributors to this thread, many of them are highly successful individuals in a variety of fields of endeavour. Your patronising attitude towards them and your general 'I'm alright Jack' tone is intensly irritating, and wrongly directed. It is perfectly possible to be successful and still understand the reasons why others may not be so, and it is also possible to understand that it is often the structures and systems of society that prevent people from fulfilling their potential. Very few of the people in this thread are 'whinging' (as you call it) on their own behalf; they are taking the wider view of the current situation as it applies to those less fortunate than them. Many of them are actively doing something about it; not just protesting on internet discussion forums.
You did get off your arse, and you did get on; good for you, I'm happy for you. You must have worked very hard, but I'd be willing to wager you got lucky somewhere along the line as well. Most of us do at some point in our lives, and some take advantage of the opportunity, some don't, and some are unable to recognise it.
An example of what I mean; the cleverest and hardest working man I know (bar none)was forced to leave school at 13 and be apprenticed to his father as a bricklayer. His parents wouldn't allow him to take the 11-plus because his elder brother had failed it the year before, and they thought that education therefore wasn't for the likes of them. He was extremely musical, but his friends bullied him when he expressed a wish to play a musical instrument. His life choices and chances were restricted from that point on; he ended up moderately successful, having been encouraged by his wife (a miner's daughter who won a scholarship and eventually went to Cambridge)and eventually gained some qualifications in engineering late in his career. He took up the 'cello at the age of 70, and plays beautifully now at the age of 86. Given different structures and systems of society and some different breaks, it is not far-fetched to see his potential career as an eminent scientist or a professional musician. Had he been born into a wealthy upper middle class family, that progression would have been more or less automatic. He certainly has the intellectual ability, and plenty of drive, even now. What was missing was opportunity; that has improved over the years, and I think many of the posters here are worried about a return to that situation based on the thrust of the coalition's policy agenda. That's the real objection Willie; the sense that the ladder is being removed, the ladder you used so successfully. I've known the subject of my example all my life; he's my father.