Friday 15 February 2008

Stuck In The Jam

Anne McElvoy went to the same school as I did (although not at the same time). So she should be utterly ashamed of herself for letting off the Bullingdon Club as (in the words of Nick Robinson)just "an Oxford version of the Bash Street Kids".

She should consider what would happen if a group of that school's old boys, the same age as Oxford undergraduates, formed themselves into an organisation - complete with a name, a uniform, officers and a membership list - specifically for the purpose of becoming drunk and disorderly before committing criminal damage and even assault.

They would rightly be sent to prison, whereas the Bullingdon Boys go on to become, simultaneously, an aspirant Prime Minister, an aspirant Chancellor of the Exchequer, and an aspirant Mayor of London.

Still, her central thesis that the Eighties generation is taking over is obviously correct. Quite what this means was illustrated on last night's Ashes To Ashes, where the destruction of skilled work, and the demolition of the homes of those who performed it, was accurately portrayed as "Thatcher and Heseltine succeeding where the Luftwaffe failed". Who won the War in the end, eh?

No wonder that Gene Hunt was visibly sympathetic. Time was when both parties were united in supporting high-skilled, high-wage jobs and high-quality, affordable housing, as well as by a common allegiance to the Crown, the Commonwealth, the churches, the Police and wider criminal justice system, the Armed Forces, and so forth.

Is there still a party for people like that? Yes, there is.

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