I’ve reviewed Simon Kuper’s book Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the U.K. for the House Magazine. I say it’s an entertaining, highly readable book that contains some great anecdotes, but it’s core thesis – that the Brexit project was shaped by the class interest of a group of grievance-mongering Tory toffs who resented the transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels because they regarded the exercise of that power as their birthright – is laughably chippy. Here are the first few paragraphs:
It has become a commonplace of Islington dinner parties that the reason Britain is in such a mess is because of its wretched class system which has condemned us to being ruled by a bunch of incompetent Tory toffs. Not only are they lazy and amoral, believing the rules don’t apply to them, but for the most part they’re innumerate and scientifically illiterate, thanks to the humanities bias at Britain’s elite public schools and Oxford University. Little wonder, then, that they’ve made such a hash of governing the country, culminating in the disastrous decision to leave the European Union.
This furious critique of our current political masters has been given its clearest expression yet by the Financial Times journalist Simon Kuper. In Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK, he traces Brexit back to a group of straight, white, ex-public schoolboys at Oxford in the 1980s and blames it on their elite backgrounds, their gargantuan sense of entitlement and the cult of the gentleman amateur.
“Ruling Britain was the prerogative of their caste,” he writes. “They didn’t want outsiders in Brussels muscling in.”
The dramatis personae of this story will be familiar to anyone interested in contemporary British politics and it is genuinely remarkable how many students who attended Oxford between 1983 and 1993 – that was the critical 10-year period, according to Kuper – now dominate public life. They not only include the architects of the Vote Leave campaign – Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings, Daniel Hannan and Jacob Rees-Mogg – but also some of the main protagonists on the other side – David Cameron, George Osborne, Jeremy Hunt, Hugo Dixon, Rory Stewart, Nick Boles and Roland Rudd. Also at Oxford at the same time were many prominent Labour politicians, including Keir Starmer, David Miliband, Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper.
Just listing all those people points to a difficulty for Kuper. If being part of a privileged clique at Oxford from 1983-93 was instrumental in shaping the views of the politicians who masterminded our exit from the European Union, why did so many members of this club end up campaigning for Remain? And it seems a bit simplistic to reduce the Tory values of Johnson, Hannan and Rees-Mogg to a desire to perpetuate their class privilege when some of the most prominent Conservatives of this Oxford generation, such as Gove, came from modest backgrounds. Indeed, Boris wasn’t exactly to the manor born himself, being a scholarship boy at Eton. As Cummings once remarked on Twitter about this class-based analysis of the Brexit project: “If u think me Gove & Boris are posh you have literally no idea what posh is.”
Worth reading in full (no paywall).
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To me it’s pretty obvious that the whole object of the Brexit/Remain exercise was to divide and rule, which is what certain Oxford toffs, particularly those who went to Eton, Harrow etc, have been trained to do. That’s why it was obvious many of them (Cameron and Johnson in particular) really didn’t care which side they supported – they were kind of just assigned sides for the fun of it. We all fell for it, and still are, if comments on this site are anything to go by. Time to drop our random tribal allegiances, because those allegiances and the limbic triggering that goes along with them are exactly what are being used against us. If the polarisations engendered by covid and the war in Ukraine haven’t woken us up to the games being played with us – to which Brexit vs Remain undoubtedly belongs – what will?
All Britain’s woes lead straight back to Tony Blair. The Bullingdon Club may never have seen the light of day if Blair hadn’t given them hope.
Cameron famously described himself as the “heir to Blair”
Pro Brexit or not, they are ALL scientifically illiterate as the past two years have shown. Is independent critical scrutiny even encouraged at Universities these days?
Sorry Martin, scientifically illiterate they may well be – wouldn’t surprise me, but the last 2 years have not been about science.
They have been about “The Science”.
The 2 are not one and the same. And if anything the last 2 years have been about slavishly following whatever their overlords have instructed them to do.
Slightly inconvenienced by the fact that Farage, who steadily built the Brexit victory over 25 years, never even went to university – let alone Oxford.
This is just another Class War diatribe by a lefty who lost the argument ….. and the Referendum.
Yes, although his background was wealthy and Dulwich College is not cheap to attend.
Arguably it’s not Oxbridge but the public school system that perpetuates an elite.
Interestingly he was inspired by Enoch Powell and Keith Joseph even then. He went straight into the City after school, following in his father’s footsteps.
A country filled with intelligent people and yet a gang of high school (kids) buddies are allowed to take control of GB. How on earth did the country’s citizens allow this.
Apathy, distraction and hundreds of years of tugging forelocks to these shysters. The media big them up and the opposition seem toothless against them. The establishment is the real cancer at the heart of this country. It is ruthless, narrow-minded and seemingly invincible.
A story from my autobiography that may be germane to this topic …
I used to be skeptical of these long-range plans to “infiltrate” different organizations or institutions, efforts to promote certain people into positions of influence now and in the future.
Then I did some real investigative journalism involving a local school system, which was introducing a litany of radical (my opinion) school reforms. Basically, this new school system, under the leadership of its new superintendent, was seeking to jettison EVERY element of “traditional” education.
And so this school system – in a conservative Alabama town no less – was soon teaching students (ah, “learners”) via a system that included no tests, no grades, no homework, no honor societies, no library, no text books, no report cards – with all learning structured around “projects” that the “adult learners” created to “engage” learners, who learned via collaboration in small groups (which, in practice, meant one bright and dedicated student did all the work for the group).
It was actually a fascinating case study to see what teachers and families supported these “reforms” and which ones recoiled. Things I observed in this drama, I’ve now also witnessed with the Covid cult. Things people… Read more »
This group of “education all-stars” all seemed to later become principals or superintendents or state education officials/leaders. The education consultants they hired to attend all of their “leadership retreats” were from out-of-state and were clearly spreading their dogma at similar corporate-funded retreats all over the country. One critic I interviewed told me the key to their operation is to get sycophant school board members appointed, a school board that would first hire these true-believing disciples as superintendents and then leave them alone and rubber-stamp whatever program they implemented. Which is exactly what happened in my town/school system.
Anyway, I’d heard these conspiracy theories about “Common Core” and these radical school reforms and never paid much attention to them. Today, I think these people and organizations HAVE been playing the “long game” all along. And hardly anyone is paying attention.I did, and I have the battle scars to prove it.
So when I read stories about the military being “captured” or the World Economic Forum or Neo-con groups slowly spreading their dogmas via their carefully-selected and groomed recruits, I now say, “Hmm. Seems possible to me.”
Epilogue:
My wife got fired; half the people admired me for writing about a topic no… Read more »
It now seem so. Johnson is the biggest disaster to befall this country since 1945.
His sense of pompous and arrogant personal entitlement built on the flimsiest of grounds and having posed as the Brexit ‘hero’, his Covid “transformation” and current willingness to sell out the Sovereignty of this country to his Globalist friends, in order to curry favour with Billionaires, place him in a “Special Category” of political and personal fraud.
I’m sure his Education and the company he kept helped form these “character traits”.
Boris is famously lazy and bad at mastering his brief. As Nazanin Zaghari knows to her cost.
But overall, Oxford isn’t really the issue. It’s hardly surprising that graduates of top universities get top jobs.
The problem is the heavy public school quotient.
You are perfectly able to join the public school quotient. They are so named ‘public schools’ because they are open to any race, creed or background.
Whether you like it or not these people get the good jobs because employers can trust that if they graduate from these schools they have been provided a first class eduction. Which is expensive.
An education may be a ‘right’ but an excellent education must be paid for.
Obviously, you’d need to come from wealth in order to benefit.
Quality of education is only part of it, it’s also public school products hiring people just like them.
By the way I’m not saying I’d want to ban private education, because I wouldn’t. But there is a problem.
They all look really effeminate.
I suppose that’s what taking it up the arse does to you.
New Romantics I’m afraid.
One well placed hand grendade (price $5) could have solved so many future problems.
The Americans thought that of Little Boy on 6th of August 1945.
Do what you will, I am just telling you that reality will become much more visceral in the next few days. I hate that side of things I am just laying them bare. Seriously as a society we have days not weeks to mend things. We need to talk on an adult basis.
Brexit is like current day racism. Eventually, every problem in the world perceived by the left comes back round to one, the other, or both.
If you’re looking for a way out of the whirlpool and cataclysm then there is simply no way out. We face it in every country. Just be wise and circumspect about the situation because it isn’t pleasant for anyone. We will find a way out and it is important that we show the best of ourselves.
Forgot to mention: Bill Gates and George Soros.
“Ruling Britain was the prerogative of their caste,” he writes. “They didn’t want outsiders in Brussels muscling in.”
Doesn’t appear to be a wholly valid theory to me: these toffs seem to be more than willing to let the USA, NATO and the WHO dictate major policies for the UK.
Honestly we are faced with a serious situation. Either we get together as Englishmen or we don’t. Because we don’t have the luxury of time.
When the 2021 census results are announced we’ll find out that there are far fewer Englishmen than there were 10 years before.
I know. So consciousness is important. We are the English, we aren’t necessarily the best but we deserve our own land.
The city of London cabal.
There is no air traffic control, there is no landing crew, there is barely an airport. You have to grasp this reality and build from it otherwise you are screwed.
It’s like Orwell said. a lot of English people complain about the class system but very few would actually want to abolish it.
In five years time the Bullingdon boys will seem like a Halcyon daydream. Your life is circumscribed within much narrower categories. Just understand it. If you are a man who likes a bit of fun and adventure then life will not be worth living for you at all, in fact it will be hell.
Photoshop Blair as an inset and you have it.
Imagine you lived in Athens 2500 years ago when shrinking from controversy was deemed to be a crime. You might suffer an anxiety attack. There is great wisdom in enshrining such an edict in terms of controlling the lower impulses of man.
They are certainly an obnoxious arrogant bunch but so are the EU mafia too.
It looks like Boris was too lazy to pull up his socks even back then…
Incompetence is Incompetence whether it’s from Eton or Bash Street schools.
However, Eton incompetence tends to have wider-reaching economic outcomes.
Absolutely.
Well said.
My gut said it wanted to post something. Over to you, gut. You can run the fingers for a bit.
I feel that we are to blame. We have sat back for decades decadently hoping that even though we are governed by one shitshow after another who all seem hellbent on moving things in a generally unpleasant direction, somehow we could just chill out and expect that things would turn out alright anyway. The idea that true democracy is getting up off your arse every four years to vote for one monstrosity or another. It’s like going to the gym, you have to use it or lose it. Where is the fire? I see generally a lazy uneasy fatalistic attitude prevailing in this country. You can’t do anything if there’s no spirit.
As one of your commutators has noted, the current disastrous state of the UK can be fairly laid at Blair’s door – just look at his record of treachery:
Human Rights laws that are a lawyers money-making charter (especially for one Cherie Blair)
Botched devolution for Scotland/Wales – didn’t that turn out well to scotch the rise of nationalism!
Botched House of Lords reform, including the disaster of creating an activist Supreme Court (yet more lucrative work for his legal cronies)
And the Biggie in most people’s eyes – opening the immigration floodgates
About the only thing we didn’t get from him was membership of the Euro, and that’s only thanks to Gordon Brown’s five (impossible) tests.
All roads to ruin lead to Blair
I’ve been repeating this for twenty years.
Wasn’t handing over sovereignty to a foreign power (EEC — EU) an act of treason in Common Law. They are about to do the same with the WHO.
And that is the red flag that nobody seems to see staring them in the face.
If PM was as determined as he says he was to restore the sovereignty of the UK back to the UK and wrestle it back from the EU why on earth would he give even a second’s thought to signing it away to that vast unaccountable body the WHO, never mind be one of the leading lights in the whole dastardly scheme?
Although not quite as destructive as Brexit.
These famous Islington dinner parties and that boring “humanities” reference. Lol!
That’s what happens to people who are so unoriginal as to get all their “jokes” from Private Eye. (Do they go “er” for emphasis and make comments they end with “Ed”? All I can say is I’m glad I don’t attend Islington dinner parties.)
Classics is part of the “humanities”?
People can use the word that way if they like, but if they’re talking about how things are at the elite private schools – or for that matter at certain Oxford colleges, or on certain websites – they’re missing a lot.
Here’s Boris Johnson reciting from the Iliad in ancient Greek.
There certainly needs to be a critique of a clique of men who believe themselves born to rule, especially in the light of recent and current events. But I think it’s missing the point. From here on in we will be ruled by the best systems managers, systems of slavery obviously. And being the best means a combination of right background, a willingness to engage in arse-licking, and general psychopathic behaviour. The higher you go the deeper the capture by psychopathy so the psychos feel more relaxed being themselves in the upper echelons.
Whose a*ses though?
And what kind of schools will the most successful functionaries send their sons to?