THE OBSERVER: The establishment is back at the heart of government. It's as if the last 100 years had never happened
As exhausted Labour ministers embraced opposition with an emotion close to relief, the party's equally exhausted staff assumed they could relax. Instead of being allowed to recuperate, however, they were overwhelmed by thousands of angry men and women clamouring to join. The sight of Nick Clegg and David Cameron joshing in the grounds of Downing Street had rammed home a truth about Britain that all the talk of "inclusion" and "diversity" obscures. We live in the most class-ridden society in western Europe, and it is becoming more sclerotic and more hierarchical by the year.
Despite the admirable attempts to combat sexism, racism and homophobia, the life-defining issue for children is not their skin colour, gender or sexuality, still less their intrinsic talent, but how much their parents are prepared to spend on their education, and what friendships they can exploit and contacts they can manipulate on their little darlings' behalf thereafter.
Look at our new government. Satirists caricature Liberals – and I think we can now stop calling them "Liberal Democrats" as their alliance with the right has sundered their links with the social democratic tradition – as muesli-munching, Observer-reading, real-ale-drinking members of the progressive middle class. The events of last week have smashed that caricature into 1,000 pieces. Instead of going with Labour, the leaders of middle-class liberalism went into David Cameron's coalition. Far from adding grit to an administration dominated by the children of the rich, they toffed it up and raised the average cabinet member's net worth by tens of thousands of pounds.
As so often, foreign journalists see Britain more clearly than we do. During the campaign, a puzzled Susanne Gelhard, London correspondent for German radio station ZDF, noticed that the British media talked incessantly about Cameron's privileged background, but never added that Clegg's was no different. "How does he do it?" she asked. "I think he must have very good PR management."
So he does. When you look at his history, you discover that his parents, who now live in some style in a chateau in the south of France, sent him to Westminster, a private school that has never seen itself as second best to Eton. On leaving Cambridge, he behaved in a manner any young Tory on the make would recognise by accepting the patronage of Lord Carrington and Lord Brittan. He married well. His Spanish wife Miriam is not only a successful lawyer bringing in a six-figure salary, but is also a Catholic. Her belief in the supernatural has the advantage of allowing the atheist Clegg to avoid the worst of the state education system and send his children to a faith school. >>> Nick Cohen | Sunday, May 16, 2010
