Boris Johnson is the epitome of what’s worst about the
English ruling class
Jean Quatremer
In Brussels, people recall an amusing buffoon devoid of
principle or political belief – but not a Eurosceptic hardliner
Tue 16 Jul 2019 05.59 BST Last modified on Tue 16 Jul 2019
15.09 BST
The scene, Cardiff. The date, 16 June 1998. The European
summit of heads of state and government has just ended, rounding off the UK’s
six-month EU presidency. Tony Blair, who has chaired the summit, is holding a
press conference. The EU correspondent for the Daily Telegraph puts up his hand
and launches into a tirade that is not so much question as full-blown
editorial. Blair, a product of the same public-school system as the questioner,
quips: “Boris, you should be prime minister!” Twenty-one years on, this
prophecy looks likely to come true.
In Brussels, officials who remember Boris Johnson from his
days there (from 1989 to 1994) are dumbfounded. Known to this day as a
“buffoon”, he is the source of many painful memories. The son of a former
Eurocrat and member of the European parliament, he made a lasting impression as
the inventor of the “Euromyth”, a journalistic genre now termed fake news. With
the backing of his editors it seems, he eagerly misrepresented events or even
completely made up stories to portray the European commission as a bureaucratic
monster making absurd proposals. As he once explained to me, aged 28 and
dressed as ever in a rumpled jacket, his shirt spilling out in typically
English manner: “You mustn’t let facts get in the way of a good story.” Among
other yarns, he claimed there were plans to establish a “banana police force”
to check the fruit was the right shape, that coffins would be standardised and
prawn cocktail crisps would be outlawed. He was quick to highlight the purportedly
extravagant lifestyle of overpaid, tax-exempted Eurocrats.
How can you counter
someone who has no illusions about a profession he only practises to gain
leverage?
For many on the continent, Johnson was then, and remains,
the epitome of what is worst in the English (not British) elite: public school,
Oxbridge, arrogant, cynical, mildly xenophobic and quite certain of their
cultural superiority. On this last point – wholly at odds with the popular
image Johnson seeks to promote – he came across as extremely sharp and
well-read, and was the envy of many of his European colleagues. A Spanish
journalist has a memory of him on a plane reading a book in ancient Greek. In
the days when French was the only language authorised in the EU press
operation, Johnson once asked a question in Latin. He wanted to know more about
some directive supposedly intended to enforce the use of the Latin names of
fish to facilitate the common fisheries policy. When Johnson was at a press
conference there was never a dull moment.
In human terms, he made no secret of being a dilettante, a
comradely guy, who enjoyed life and was always ready to lend a hand. Above all,
he was perpetually on the lookout for a good story. In a booming voice he would
repeatedly ask me: “What’s the story today, Jean?” You had to pick your words
carefully, or run the risk of the Telegraph printing some daft, uncorroborated tale.
Yet he seemed completely guileless, never the hardline
ideologue depicting the EU as a remake of the thousand-year Reich and the root
of all evil. On the contrary: put simply, here was a man of little principle,
amused by everything and not remotely bothered about the consequences of what
he wrote or the damage he might be doing. Blessed with a great sense of humour
he had no difficulty silencing even the most outspoken critics.
After all, how can you counter someone who owns up to his
fibs and has no illusions about a profession he only practises to gain
leverage? In this respect he was utterly successful. He managed to bring about
a permanent shift in the British media, not just the conservative press, eager
to copy his success with his Euromyths, a form of journalism that eventually
paved the way for Brexit. I remember a Times correspondent – a paper that
sacked Johnson early on in his career for making up a quote – on the verge of
tears as he explained that his copy had been completely rehashed in London to
match the growing Eurosceptic mood there. Of course the truth about the EU’s
activities was always less spectacular, but not so likely to make the front
page.
That this spoilt child of a man – who lies like a toddler
and has only the vaguest of political convictions – should be closing in on
power gives the UK’s partners overseas the impression that the end is nigh.
This, it seems, will be the final act of a political drama launched by
Johnson’s fellow old Etonian David Cameron when he chose to organise a
referendum on British membership of the EU. The inability to implement the
resulting leave vote and actually leave has made the UK an international
laughing stock.
Ultimately Johnson is the epitome of the British ruling
class, who in their quest for power are happy to gamble cynically with the
future of their country and the livelihoods of their fellow citizens. But his
lack of any real direction or belief may yet prove an asset, because he is
completely unpredictable.
Many in Brussels believe he is capable of any move, even
backtracking and shelving Brexit if he thinks it could be turned to his
personal advantage. After all, before becoming one of the leading lights in the
leave campaign, he was for a long time against the idea of the UK leaving the
EU. A pragmatic buffoon, in other words, might be better than a fanatic. Watch
out though: Johnson is also capable of taking Britain over the cliff. It would
be totally at odds with the statesmanship of his political idol, Winston
Churchill, but Boris Johnson might think it amusing.
• Jean Quatremer is Brussels correspondent of Libération
The Observer
Boris Johnson
Woman who recruited members during the club’s 80s heyday
reveals the true extent of members’ destructive behaviour
Harriet Sherwood
@harrietsherwood
Sun 7 Jul 2019 09.00 BST Last modified on Wed 10 Jul 2019
10.35 BST
It is notorious for champagne-swilling, restaurant-trashing,
“pleb”-taunting elitism. Now new light has been shed on the outrageous antics
of the Bullingdon Club – the Oxford University group that may be about to
produce its second British prime minister – by someone intimately connected to
it during Boris Johnson’s membership.
A woman who acted as a scout for potential members of the
Bullingdon Club in the mid-1980s has said that female prostitutes performed sex
acts at its lavish dinners, women were routinely belittled, and that
intimidation and vandalism were its hallmarks.
The woman, who has asked not to be named, is now an academic
and regards her involvement with the male-only Bullingdon Club more than 30
years ago with extreme regret and embarrassment.
In her first week at Oxford in 1983, she was approached by a
member of the club to identify potential recruits – a role she performed
throughout her time as an undergraduate. She also had an 18-month relationship
with a man who became a president of the club. In her final year at Oxford, she
shared a house with Bullingdon members.
Her involvement with the club coincided with Boris Johnson’s
membership and overlapped with David Cameron’s. She was not a close friend of
Johnson but they had a number of good friends in common, she said. She has
maintained contact with several former Bullingdon members over the past 30-plus
years.
“I helped recruit for the Bullingdon, and advised [the
president] on its activities,” she told the Observer. “I know very well what
the patterns of behaviour were. When [her ex-boyfriend] was president, they had
prostitutes at their dinners. They performed sex acts, sometimes at the shared
dining table, and sometimes elsewhere on the premises.”
In 2016, Ralph Perry-Robinson, a Bullingdon member in the
mid-1980s, confirmed that prostitutes attended club events. “We always hire
whores… prostitutes were paid extra by members who wanted to use them,” he told
the Daily Beast.
The woman said: “The whole culture was to get extremely
drunk and exert vandalism. Every time someone was elected, they had to have
their room smashed to pieces. People talk about the Bullingdon Club ‘trashing’
places, but it was serious criminal damage.”
One incident she recalled at Magdalen College involved “a
large galleried room that had just been refurbished with expensive wood
panelling. Every piece of furniture that could have been broken was broken,
every liquid sprayed around the room, the panelling was cracked, and everything
was piled in a heap in the middle of the room. The college door to Magdalen was
smashed to pieces.
“I remember the clerk of works looking at the mess in
complete dismay. The college had spent a great deal on the refurbishment. All
the students who heard this late-night destruction were terrified, I remember.”
Bullingdon members “found it amusing if people were
intimidated or frightened by their behaviour. I remember them walking down a
street in Oxford in their tails, chanting ‘Buller, Buller’ and smashing bottles
along the way, just to cow people.”
She recalled a party held in a room at Magdalen in the
academic year 1985/6 at which guests were invited to “come as your alter ego”.
Two Bullingdon members appeared in Nazi uniforms and “goose-stepped back and
forth in the upstairs galleried area”. They were photographed by a friend of
the woman who was taking pictures of the party.
“The next morning [the pair] came round to her room. They
barged in and pulled the roll of film out of the camera. She was a feisty
character, and told lots of people about this. She died a couple of years ago.”
Boris was one of the
club’s big beasts. He was up for anything. They treated certain people with
absolute disdain.
Former club recruiter
The woman who was the club recruiter said: “Boris was one of
the big beasts of the club. He was up for anything. They treated certain types
of people with absolute disdain, and referred to them as ‘plebs’ or ‘grockles’,
and the police were always called ‘plod’. Their attitude was that women were
there for their entertainment.”
She said there was a “culture of excess” in the 1980s in
which the activities of the Bullingdon Club felt “normalised”. “They had an air
of entitlement and superiority.”
Although many former members of the Bullingdon Club –
including Johnson – have since publicly regretted their involvement in some of
its activities, they developed “close-knit, generational ties,” said the woman.
“Many still see each other. They have long-established networks, and they think
it’s in their power to confer high office on anyone they choose. There is a
bond of loyalty.”
The club was founded in 1780 as a hunting and cricket club.
Two hundred years later, it was infamous for its distinctive uniform of
tailcoats with white silk facings, and its heavy drinking and wild behaviour.
In 2013, Johnson – who reputedly still greets former members
with a cry of “Buller, Buller, Buller” – described it as “a truly shameful
vignette of almost superhuman undergraduate arrogance, toffishness and
twittishness”. He added: “But at the time you felt it was wonderful to be going
round swanking it up.”
A photograph of club members in their Bullingdon tailcoats
taken in 1987 has been repeatedly republished since Cameron became Tory leader.
The picture made him “cringe”, he said. “We all did stupid things when we are
young and we should learn the lessons.”
Last October, Bullingdon Club members were banned from
holding positions in the Oxford University Conservative Association. The
association’s president, Ben Etty, said the club’s “values and activities had
no place in the modern Conservative party”.
In recent years, membership has reportedly dwindled to a
handful as today’s undergraduates shun an organisation with a toxic reputation.
The woman who recruited members in Oxford in the 1980s said
that she was horrified at the prospect of Johnson becoming prime minister.
“The characteristics he displayed at Oxford – entitlement,
aggression, amorality, lack of concern for others – are still there, dressed up
in a contrived, jovial image. It’s a mask to sanitise some ugly features.”
Britain is still ruled by a privately educated elite. Let’s
end this culture of deference
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
The baffling preference by employers (and voters) for people
from expensive schools blocks others’ progress and stifles innovation
@rhiannonlucyc
Tue 25 Jun 2019 12.01 BST Last modified on Tue 25 Jun 2019
18.25 BST
A new report by the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility
Commission has found that a tiny cohort of privately educated people, many of
whom went to Oxbridge, continue to hold the top jobs in the country. The people
holding those top jobs, in politics, the media, the judiciary and business, are
five times more likely to have been to private school than the general
population.
It is not surprising, though it is depressing. I have often
lamented the deference that so many of us still seem to feel towards those who
embody this well-established pipeline from prep to parliament, who walk the
walk and talk the talk of the old aristocratic elite – Boris Johnson’s
continued rise, despite little evidence of talent or integrity, being the most
pertinent recent example. There seems to be more than a little bit of
Downton-ish forelock-tugging, “they were good to us up at the big house”,
feeling of residual inferiority about it. Why the continued respect where there
should be scorn and suspicion for those who buy themselves advantages in life
and then coast through, seemingly answerable to no one?
Well, I don’t respect it. I’m polite about it, as you can’t
blame an individual child for the circumstances of his or her birth whether
rich or poor, but I won’t pretend I think any of those privately educated
people who dominate Britain are better than you or me (because the chances are
you went to state school, too. Most of us did, after all). I’m always going to
be more impressed by a kid from a council estate and a struggling comprehensive
who gets four As at A-level than I am by someone with the same grades who has
been spoon-fed Latin their whole education before being shepherded to repeated
Oxbridge interview roleplay sessions.
The question is: why aren’t Oxbridge interviewers impressed
by this? Oxford and Cambridge are improving their intake, but progress is slow,
and despite the laughable fears of some independent schools that their pupils
are being discriminated against, not enough is being done. In 2018 the Sutton
Trust accused Oxford and Cambridge of being so socially exclusive that they
recruited more students from eight top schools than almost 3,000 other UK state
schools put together. That’s simply unjustifiable. Furthermore, it’s a plucky
state school child that would stride willingly and confidently into such an
environment.
Yet the off-putting aspects of a group – whether at
university or in the world of work – dominated by private school pupils is
never talked about. Our continued delusion that we live in a meritocracy masks
any dissenting view. Could it not be argued that a dominance of private school
and Oxbridge workers is likely to block innovation, creativity and vision in
many industries? That it perpetuates a sort of parochial, small-c,
conservativeness – a dullness. It’s so boring. People will hire in their own
image, and then they all have dinner parties with each other, have the same
in-jokes. It’s cliquey and exclusive, overwhelmingly white, rife with nepotism,
profoundly uncool and unexciting.
The social confidence afforded to the privately educated is
always cited but never challenged, despite Hugh Grant forging an entire early
acting career from a posh, bumbling inability to talk to women. Is it really
acceptable to recruit so many men from single-sex boarding schools who struggle
to look women in the eye? (The same problem exists in reverse too, of course,
though fewer of these women will be in managerial positions). Any
state-educated woman in a top industry will recognise this. At first it’s
amusing, then baffling, then infuriating. It undoubtedly halts women’s progress
in the workplace.
I’ll be attacked for this, as I always am when I write about
our revolting, outdated class system. Nevertheless, recruiters need to open
their eyes to the potential downsides of candidates who are privately educated,
and instead of looking at a woman’s date of birth or a person of colour’s
surname and, despite it being illegal, tossing that CV into the wastepaper
basket. “Oof,” they could say, “went to Eton. Might be a bit unimaginative,
probably not very good at managing teams with women working on them, could be a
bit blinkered by privilege.”
This is not to say that privately educated Oxbridge
graduates are bad people or don’t have anything good to bring to the table –
just that perhaps we need to stop focusing so much on what’s fair and instead
look at what’s most interesting and imaginative. I have a friend who worked for
an organisation that claimed to be at the cutting edge of culture, philosophy
and ideas. They wouldn’t look at a CV unless it had an Oxbridge college on it.
I’m sure there were some excellent candidates, but let’s not pretend that
anything particularly transgressive or exciting is going to emerge as a result
of such hiring policies.
Companies and organisations need to be more transparent
about their hiring policies. Just as we had a gender pay gap audit, so should
we have a class audit. It could take into account multiple factors to account
for the full picture of class today. All companies should have to publish the
results. They should do more outreach, too, so that students feel that they are
wanted, regardless of a disadvantaged, or even normal, background. More mentoring
schemes would also be beneficial, more affordable training, too. And, as
always, more opportunities outside of London.
There are practical steps that can be taken, but the more
psychological shift of facing up to the fact that a private school education
doesn’t always make a better candidate is something that I fear will take many
generations to unpick.
• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário