The only time I've knowingly met someone from Eton was when I was in good old Pollock Halls of Residence back in '97. His 'oh really's and 'ghastly's were utterly charming and his impressive academic, interpersonal and sporting talents were there to be seen in their abundance. He was, to be fair, a bit awkward in the intra-mural football team as I don't think the covert shirt-pulling, lack of linesmen and general amateur dirty tricks wasn't quite what he was used to. Absolute stand-up bloke though.So when Gordon Brown, backed by his braying Labour MPs, says at PMQs "With him and Mr Goldsmith their inheritance tax policy seems to have been determined on the playing fields of Eton" in the hope that it will curry favour with poor saps like myself that had what I can only assume must have been the life-wrecking misfortune of having to endure the squalor of a state school, I fear he is missing the point spectacularly.
The next election should not have the theme of 'we're for the many and not the few' despite Gordon Brown's attempts. The economy and the environment should be the top two issues and these are areas of concern regardless of whether you are landed gentry or don't have a penny to rub between your fingers.
If the public piggy bank is full, as we thought it was for much of the past decade, then it's more acceptable to start a faux 'class war' in deciding whether the money should go towards tax breaks or more public spending but if the public piggy bank is empty, as it patently is, then whether you're for the rich or for the poor is a false dichotomy. Labour's war of attrition on this score is bad for politics, harmful to the economy and just generally poor form.
The next election should not have the theme of 'we're for the many and not the few' despite Gordon Brown's attempts. The economy and the environment should be the top two issues and these are areas of concern regardless of whether you are landed gentry or don't have a penny to rub between your fingers.
If the public piggy bank is full, as we thought it was for much of the past decade, then it's more acceptable to start a faux 'class war' in deciding whether the money should go towards tax breaks or more public spending but if the public piggy bank is empty, as it patently is, then whether you're for the rich or for the poor is a false dichotomy. Labour's war of attrition on this score is bad for politics, harmful to the economy and just generally poor form.
Furthermore, it seems very odd and not a little bit hypocritical for Labour to push for wider access to the very best education available in the country and then mock those who are lucky, privileged and/or clever enough to receive such an education.
We live in a free country, if you don't like rich people then you don't have to vote for them but it's a 'ghastly', short-sighted way to pick the next Government if you ask me old boy.
We live in a free country, if you don't like rich people then you don't have to vote for them but it's a 'ghastly', short-sighted way to pick the next Government if you ask me old boy.
18 comments:
Jeff
They say it 'cos it works. It's "Toffs v Toughs", writ large. A stick to beat them with. Doesn't bear close examination (just look at the schools of most of the Labour bench)
I'm no fan of inherited privilege - working class bag of chips on my shoulder from Drumchapel - but they didn't ask for it, but if they can do a job, fine. It's no different than me bringing my background up in my job...
Further to that - and I NEVER agree with Rentoul normally - this nails it pretty well
http://indyeagleeye.livejournal.com/59645.html
Anon,
People can't have it both ways. You don't get to complain about the treatment of Gorbals Mick while slagging off Posh Dave.
And I don't think it does work. The super rich Timpson won the Crewe and Nantwich byelection despite an intense anti-toff rhetoric from Labour.
As I say, it's a false dichotomy so I suggest you remove those crisps or, better still, eat them.
What was GB on about? Don't Labour want to raise the IHT threshold too?
I've met two teenage boys from Eton - one was on a creative writing residential for his duke of edinburgh award - he seemed very self-centred and made friends with a posh girl who made lots of unfunny jokes about cocaine...
It's just more evidence that Labour have retreated to their grass roots, the recent PPB is a case in point where it was more mythology than fact (labour being the only major party that actually refused suffragette membership)....
They are donning the robes of old labour to shore up support, these tattered robes would be flung aside should they squeeze the next general election you can be sure of that.
Good point regarding the PPB.
It's one thing to have a progressive past, it's quite another to have a progressive future.
The options are running out.
I'm sure Labour don't really want to engage in this stuff because deep down they don't believe it will work - mostly because the profile of the seats that they are in danger of losing to the Tories are actually natural Tory seats that Blair smuggled into the Labour camp.
It's a further sign that Labour have nothing to offer any more - did they ever?
When you get a chance Jeff, go watch today's FMQ's.
Wendy the Clown makes an appearance. You may also wish to take the screencap off my blog (or grab your own) for purposes of humour….
Brown went to a "good" state school, ie it wasn't one in a sink estate. His father was a C of S Minister--by definition part of the Scottish Establishment--and Brown went to school from a large, probably detached house (The Manse). He probably never went hungry or without material possessions.
I'm sure his classmates regarded HIM as "privileged".
Incidentally Brown pilloried Cameron for being a "PR man". That would be Brown whose brother is the PR man for the French company trying to flog nuclear power stations to Britain!
I think the idea of Labour ministers pretending to be the party of cloth caps and whippets when they're mostly public schoolboys or property millionaires is farcical.
If David Cameron was to describe Labour in terms of down't'pit',bingo playing chavs there would be an outcry.
I think the idea of Labour ministers pretending to be the party of cloth caps and whippets when they're mostly public schoolboys or property millionaires is farcical.
If David Cameron was to describe Labour in terms of down't'pit',bingo playing chavs there would be an outcry.
This is going to be a dirty sordid little election campaign. I think Liebour should beware of trying class based politics. The population has become a lot more sophisticated over the years, not to say more cynical. And animal farm was a set text at my state school.It may well back fire on them.
They are a party of privilege themselves. How working class is it to make millions from the sacrifice of working class boys in unpopular wars? How egalitarian is it for your wife and kids to all have jobs in the EU? Is it more privileged to be the son of a self made millionaire or to be the son of a hereditary Liebour peer?
They all went to Oxbridge.
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Gah! Can you please dump the tiresome 'liebour' line, comrade boxer? Same to all others who feel the need to resort to insult.
And Jeff, I'm with you about this misplaced (anti-)snobbery.
Jeff
I don't think it's class war Labour are going for, actually. It IS a kind of 'us versus them' but the 'us' is much wider than class (or that's what Labour hope, in any case).
What they are trying to do is position themselves on the side of 'oridnary people' - which in New Labour mythology includes the lower and 'middle' middle-classes - versus bankers and toffs, or 'spivs and speculators' as Salmond puts it.
They keep bringing up Eton and so on because it is so different from the experience of most people in this country (although I do of course concede that Labour's frontbench is full of Oxbridge graduates).
They're trying to say to Britain as a whole - NOT just the 'working-class' - "These Tories are not like you, do you really want them to govern you?"
Also, you have to remember one thing re the economy and the dreadful state of public finances:
Yes, all parties will have to make cuts. However, Labour BELIEVES that they are the only party how will do their utmost to protect the poorest during this process.
Now, whether that is TRUE, I do not know, but Labour certainly believe it to be.
Una: To be fair, they do tell the most horrific porkers.
Jeff: It's a non starter really. Lots of the Labour Front Bench are public School educated; some are very rich; many of them are in the House of Lords (including the Dept Prime Minister and the Transport Secretary for England.)
If what they are trying to imply is that Cameron and his shadow cabinet don't know what it's like to live in Britian as an ordinary person, I should imagine that goes for most of them in the Labour Party too.
It's very easy to forget poor working class backgrounds when for years you live the pampered life of a minister.
The class thing didn't work in Nantwich because the Labour candidate was way posher than the Tory boy. You'd have though someone would have seen that. Duh!
I think the technical term for this kind of toff bashing is 'bunnet rustling'..
I'm with you Una, 'liebour' makes me wince every time.
And bunnet rustling sounds much more pleasant Julie, gets my vote (the name that is, not the actual tomfoolery itself)
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