One of the least surprising aspects of the current level of political discourse is how it has become a small microcosm of the country, that microcosm being the privileged parts. The major spat is the EU spat between Old Etonian David Cameron with fellow Old Etonian Boris Johnson. Cameron’s main political allies include ex St Pauls student George Osborne, ex Charterhouse boy Jeremy Hunt and numerous other private school and grammar schoolboys and girls.
Luckily, we have an opposition party where the leaders come from very different backgrounds. Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and who else but Diane Abbott all went to grammar schools. Corbyn divorced his wife when she sent their son to private school but Ms Abbott carried on with other career as the loosest of loose cannons on Labour’s hard left, advising people to do as she said, but not as she did. I wonder what their great mentor, the late Tony Benn would have made of it, except that he went to the Westminster Private School too, the very same one attended by Nick Clegg, David Cameron’s former best friend.
Cameron v Johnson is far more than a sideshow. Along with so many other political leaders in this country, from both main parties, the power remains with the elite few in society. It was not the fault of the likes of Cameron or indeed Corbyn to be born into privilege, but the fact is that they are products of a more privileged existence, far more privileged than the way the rest of us lead our lives. Guess which school Zac Goldsmith, the prospective Tory candidate to replace Johnson as London’s mayor, went to? Of course! He’s an Old Etonian.
Some of them act as though we are supposed to look up at them. Boris Johnson has a finely tuned and highly effective buffoon type image. No one seriously looks at him and thinks, “Well, he’s a good type who I’d like to have a pint with!” Instead, they think he’s a genial eccentric who calls it like it is. He’s anything but.
I dread to think of the proportion of privately educated MPs in the House of Commons. Granted, many of them are in the Tory party, but even among the comrades, who do not always practice what they preach, there are so many who have led far more affluent lives than the riff raff who vote them into office.
None of this should mean that a politician’s background should prevent him from knowing or even understanding how the rest of us live. I suspect that the likes of Cameron and Osborne understand full well the misery austerity is inflicting on the lower orders but choose to ignore it.
In an ideal world, and we are a million light years away from that, we would have some form of meritocracy, whereby everyone has the opportunity to progress regardless of their background. This certainly does not apply across society in general, never mind just in the pampered world of politics. Relatively few working class children reach the elite universities, most don’t even get the chance to attend any university at all. People like George Osborne or Diane Abbott didn’t send their children to private schools just for a laugh: they did it because they believe, rightly, that the additional privileged conferred upon them will benefit them in the world of work. They bought education that others cannot afford to give their children advantages over others. Do not allow any politician, ever, to say otherwise. The honest ones don’t deny it.
The current set-to at the heart of our politics merely goes to prove that this is still a class-riven society, where the rich and privileged own and control the levers of power inside and outside of parliament. I just worry that ordinary people have been so ground down by a political class (and believe me I hate that term) which maintains the power at the top and think there is nothing they can do about it. I think they’re right.
