Posh gits and (upper-)class heroes

[mirrorshard]

The very rich are not like you and I.
No, they have more money.

Yes, this is a post about Boris Johnson. Feel free to skip.

A lot of the Boris-criticism-criticism I've been seeing lately can be more or less summed up as "don't hate him for being a posh Tory prat". After all, we wouldn't dream of saying that someone wasn't qualified for an elected position because they were too working-class, right?

The problem with that is that the two aren't equivalent. Because our Mayor has always been rich, he's always been privileged and insulated - he's been surrounded by other people of his own class, race, and wealth level to a greater extent than any council-estate hoodie, first at private school and then at Oxbridge. He's never been forced to work at something he didn't want to do, never run the risk of homelessness or bad credit, never had to live hand to mouth. (To the best of my knowledge, at least. I may be wrong about that. If so, please correct me.)

The fact that he went to Eton depresses me more than the Oxford education - after all, many people manage to get through Oxford without being ruined. (And I should stress that this isn't linked to party affiliation. At the moment, they're all posh gits.) But he was a member of the Bullingdon Club, like Cameron, there. For those of you not familiar with the term, they're a bunch of yobs who dress up in penguin costumes and go out to smash up restaurants.

So, like David Cameron (notorious for surrounding himself with others of his own background) he has a far smaller range of people he can identify with, empathise with, and relate to than someone like Ken Livingstone with a more rounded education and socialization. I'm not trying to say he can't, or that he has no interest in it - just that being a posh toff brings with it a lot of disadvantages when it comes to relating to ordinary people, and posh toffs are statistically much more likely to be out of touch with ordinary people than the rest of us are.

What I'd like to see - though there are more than a few problems with the idea - is a rule that nobody can stand for public office unless they've spent at least six months on Government benefits in the past.

Comments

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

I really don't see why the one should follow from the other.

After all, grammar schools (where my mum went) were meant to provide quality education to the non-wealthy and in many regards succeeded.

However, the fact that you yourself have had good education without wealth does not mean that everyone does, and I am not even sure we are talking about the same kinds of education anyway (your point about defining quality being relevant). Are you denying that a child with poor parents will probably not be able to contemplate the many thousands of pounds of debt they will incur to get a degree? Are you denying that for those who do, they are comparatively disadvantaged throughout their lives compared to people who don't leave university with a massive debt? Are you denying that poor parents living in poor areas have a harder time finding 'good' schools, or being able to partake in their child's education when they do?

If you disagree that less well-educated people should be in positions of power, as you said, then what level of education do you think should be required to run for public offices?

I have no idea what views you hold other than the ones you've expressed here, so if you think I am completely misunderstanding your position then, again, you might want to think about how you're phrasing your responses. I'm not denying my own responsibility here, but I have read all your responses several times and those really are the impressions given by the words you have used.