Living under Hypocracy
Aug. 11th, 2011 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmThere'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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
a_d_medievalist for the link).
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).