First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog

2 Responses

1. Aniruddha G. Kulkarni says:

   November 21, 2008 at 2:37 pm

   As long as the West remains militarily more powerful, the ‘centre of gravity’ will never shift towards China/India.Whatever happens on the Wall Street.

   But India is already leading Britain in one aspect.

   Mr. Toby Young argues:”…Will the day come when the celebritariat endangers its own existence by becoming a self-perpetuating elite, closed off to new members? There are signs that this is beginning to happen, with the children of famous people inheriting their celebrity status, just as aristocrats inherited their parents estates…”

   This has already happened in India.

   Sons, daughters, wives and concubines of cricketers, film and TV personalities, politicians and businessmen make more than 50% of all “celebrities” in India.

   William Leith is right in observing:”…And their (India’s) media is heading for ad-backed celebrity hell faster, and more comprehensively, than ours.”
2. Michael Taylor says:

   November 22, 2008 at 10:21 am

   So, the establishment is agreed that social mobility is not a problem in Britain today. They reasssure us: You just have to look at it the right way. The working class has never had it so good. They can even hope to make it onto reality TV.

   I don’t think it’s a matter of money, it’s a matter of efficiency. Are the right people in charge? Michael Young, in my view, needn’t have worried - what we have is not meritocracy, but mediocracy (a term I thought I had invented, but Googling proves me wrong), the rule of the average and the mediocre.

   I am afraid the editor gave the game away. In (almost) his owm words: I went to Eton, messed up my A-levels, went to an ordinary university, but, Hey! Here I am! Editor of Prospect!

   The anti-intellectual, materialistic English middle class say they send their children to private schools for a better education, but the real reason is to give them a good start in life. The Old School Tie still works; you should be able to find some safe and well-paid billet somewhere, it apparently used to be Lloyds of London for Old Carthusians (see Julian Barnes, Letters from London, Picador 1995, pp192ff).

   I have a grudge against Michael Young, because it seems to me that he gave Tony Crosland the ammunition to destroy the grammar school system. I have a theory that post-war British left-wingery was a conspiracy by the ruling class to ensure that, come the revolution, the right people would still be in charge. The extraordinary, widespread ridiculing of the trade unions, which have resisted having their leadership parachuted in but recruit talent from below, may fit in with this. It is odd that the public schools were left alone and now appear to be accomplishing the very thing that Young said he was against, entrenching an hereditary ruling class. His son’s contribtion to this debate is, to my view, plain silly, but never mind, and I am glad that’s he’s doing well for himself!

   I apologise for personalising the debate; it’s too important for that. I am not bitter, but resigned. However, I am starting to suspect that the country is becoming less competent; things seem somehow to be more messed up. The Royal Navy’s humiliation by the Iranians in the Gulf not so long ago may be one example. I fear lest we may no longer be training up a good, solid middle cadre of people who can run things properly, the grammar school people who used to provide a lot of the RN’s junior officers in Jane Austen’s time.
   Michael Taylor,
   27 Duke Street
   Oxford OX2 0HX