Living under Hypocracy

[steepholm]

There's been a lot of coverage (which I'm sure you've seen) of a 1986 quotation from Cameron in which he described vandalizing restaurants in the company of Boorish Johnson when they were both members of Da Bullingdon Crew: "Things got out of hand and we’d had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets.” Just as a rich thief is a kleptomaniac and a white terrorist is obviously mentally disturbed, so vandalism by the children of millionaires is youthful high spirits, nothing more. Ask Bertie Wooster!

More recently I've heard the riots widely blamed on a "something for nothing" mentality. Celebrities, the National Lottery (copyright J. Major), game shows and the benefits system are all cited as examples of this corrosive cultural malaise, which allows an underclass to live in the lap of poverty on their grace and favour estates, generation after generation. Oddly, though, no one cites inherited wealth, such as that of, say, David Cameron; or inherited titles, such as that of, say, Prince William. On the contrary, the Government is committed to keeping inheritance tax low, and is wholly committed to the monarchy. Funny, that.

ETA: I've now seen some fairly plausible evidence that the above Cameron quote was invented. But I'm leaving it up, because its content (minus the bit about setting fire to the toilets) is true. Cameron and Johnson, with others, did "smash places up", around the same time Nick Clegg was committing arson in Germay (thanks to a_d_medievalist for the link).

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We should be taking every opportunity we can to remind Cameron, Johnson and Osbourne of their membership of the Bullingdon Club.

They should have done time for those crimes, but I suppose daddy's money smoothed everything over.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

My favourite attribution of blame was a member of the public, on the World Service, suggesting that the root cause is instant mashed potatoes.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's taking "For mash get Smash" a bit too literally!

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

LOL. I didn't even see that one coming :)

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

'Then they smash them all to bits with their metal knives'

I suspect _primitivepeople_ would love this thread! His favourite userpic is one of the Smash robots :o)

Thatcher sowed the zephyr of acquisitiveness and we're reaping the whirlwind.............

[calimac.livejournal.com]

No, I hadn't heard about that. That's rich, in several senses of the word.

3 Elm Grove.

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

Had to pop into the Doctors this morning for a prescription. Receptionist tut-tutted about the yobs and I replied "Yobs in civvies or yobs in Blue?"