Sunday 6 December 2009

Playing fields of Eton

Chris Dillow comments on Gordon Brown's jibe about Conservative economic policy being forged on the playing-fields of Eton.

I agree with most of what he says. Eton - which produced George Orwell and Captain Hook (according to Barrie) as well as "toffs", remember - is irrelevant. However, it is relevant that a clique is seen to have formed, through school and university, round the Conservative leader. It could just as easily have been Sandfields Comp. and Ruskin College. They are perceived as looking after their own. It is this which Cameron has to rebut.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sandfields Comp! Really Ffranc what are you trying to say about my old Alumni?

I can remember a Parents Evening I attended (at said school) with my parents, someone asked the question "How many Oxbridge entrances has the school had?" The reply came back, “We don’t believe in sending our students to Oxbridge, it would give them the wrong sort of education”

You really can’t beat a bit of inverse snobbery; it’s a bit like the Brown jibe to Cameron.

Not that the Labour Party’s benches are brimming with Colliers, Steelworkers, Textile Workers……..or even Socialists.

Frank Little said...

I thought "Sandfields Comp" was a reasonably generic name. There must be half-a-dozen "Sandfields" across South Wales.

As to the backgrounds of New Labour front-benchers, I can only think of Alan Johnson as one who earned an honest living.

John said...

The tories should counter attack.

I would far rather see an ex public school boy in government than an ex stalinist! See The roots of New Labour. What is wrong with our media, why don't they explain exactly what it meant to be an extreme left winger in the Cold War? These Labour ministers were evil by their own choice when they were younger, not sent there by their parents.