ANOTHER VOICE
How the Conservatives even now can turn the tables on Tony Blair
AUBERON WAUGH
But these whingeing headmasters should not suppose that their case is particular. Hatred of the public schools and of the bourgeois culture they once upheld is so widespread among the white-collar workers of Britain as to be almost universal. One senses it in every train, where loud, upper- class voices create a frisson of hatred through the carriage. It is entering its tri- umphalist state now, as we see in Treasury directives from the Permanent Secretary, Sir 'Terry' Burns, demanding that inter- office memoranda be written in tabloid English. Use of Latin catch-phrases is banned, because few state-educated man- darins understand them or can be bothered to look them up in the appropriate refer- ence book.
At the time, I wittily observed that since so many people leaving state education nowadays are unable to understand the simplest sums, Sir 'Terry' had better issue another directive pretty soon, forbidding the use of figures in any internal Treasury memoranda. But my point on that occasion was to draw attention to the failure of the Treasury in its traditional role of curbing the Father Christmas fantasies of demo- cratic politicians. The Terrys of the Trea- sury have not done well. Next year the Gov- ernment will grab and spend £300 billion of our money. This is slightly more than half our gross domestic product, and the almost exact equivalent of £100 per week for every man, woman and child in the country. Never mind how the money is frittered away. My point •on that first occasion was that the Treasury Terrys, for all their com- mand of tabloid English, have been a national catastrophe.
My point on this occasion is the different one of relating the lower-class triumphal- ism of the Treasury Terrys to a great national mood which embraces not only the universities and departments of state, but even the teenagers on our streets. Since the beginning of term, five weeks ago, no fewer than ten Harrow boys have been beaten up in the streets of Harrow, almost entirely, it would appear, on class grounds, although robbery may have been another motive. The local youngsters approve. One of them, 16-year-old Akua Owusu-Amah, explained to the Sunday Telegraph:
`The Harrow boys think they're above us. You see them in McDonald's flashing their money about. I saw one boy blow £10 on a feast of two double-burgers with chips, a Chicken McNugget meal and a portion of apple pie. He ate it all himself to show off.'
I can see it must be irritating for the young people of Harrow to watch these appalling exhibitions of gormandism by the jeunesse doree. What is interesting about Akua Owusu-Amah's evidence is that the Sunday Telegraph should ask for it. Aiwa's friend, Sabrini Balendra, also 16, agreed, adding:
`If you try to talk to them, they just ignore you. I'm not bothered about their being mugged.'
Another youngster, Sheraz Khan, 17, studying business and finance at a state col- lege nearby, said: `The Harrow boys give us the up-and-down with their eyes, as if we're lower class. They are really irritating when they come into town, talking loudly and screaming with laughter at each other's jokes.'
I imagine there has always been tension between college and town, although we are assured that hostility is now at an unprece- dented level. An even greater difference is that whereas in former times Harrovians might have organised themselves into gangs to avenge and subdue their enemies, send- ing them back to their single mothers with cut lips and broken teeth, they now take a Wow — a fax haven ...' conciliatory line, assuming much of the blame. The current issue of the Hanvvian urges boys to stop swaggering down the road 'like the stereotypical little rich kid, perpetuating the idea that the Hill is inhab- ited by a snotty-nosed bunch of brats'.
It is this conciliatory, apologetic tone which gives the game away. The school has seen unprovoked attacks on ten of its pupils in half that number of weeks, and all it can do is to urge them to try and make themselves more likable. By selling the pass in this way, public schools not only acknowledge their unpopularity but virtual- ly deny their right to exist.
All of which may go some way to explain Tony Blair's education policy, which is to pay for smaller classes in state schools by ending assisted places in the private sector. Nobody can seriously deny that state edu- cation is in an appalling mess. Smaller classes might indeed be an improvement where the teachers have anything to teach. Where teachers are ignorant, semi-literate, innumerate and bone idle, their skulls filled with a lot of discredited 'progressive' theo- ry, then it doesn't really matter how small the class is. Two would be too many. In Japan, they manage very well indeed with classes of 60 or 70.
Teachers are themselves more often than not the products of the state system which they help to perpetuate. Blair's reform will merely ensure that no poor child ever again receives a decent education. One does not have to be a liberal to see this as a crying shame.
But he is banking on the unpopularity of the public schools, and it occurs to me that this weapon is also available to the other side. Blair, if elected, will be the first public school prime minister for over 30 years since, in fact, Douglas-Home in 1964. Many of us may be relieved, even rejoice, to have a properly educated man in Downing Street, but not the general public. The Tories have nothing else to offer. Their only chance is to make a virtue of their mediocrity, portray Tony Blair not as a crypto-socialist at the head of a sinister army of loonies and feminists, but as a typi- cal loud Harrovian in boater and `bluers', stuffing himself with double-burgers and Chicken McNuggets in order to show off. That is if they want to win the election. If they don't, they can go on telling us about their very real achievements, and how our economy is the envy of Europe.
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