AS I WAS SAYING
Why Tories should join enthusiastically in abolishing hereditary peers
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE
In all countries elites are unpopular, but in Britain they are particularly unpopular by reason of their continuing association at least in their higher reaches — with a hereditary aristocracy. Only in this country are the elites which have risen through their own efforts tainted by an aristocracy which hasn't. The habit of transforming meritocrats into life peers only accentuates this problem. To the envy which the suc- cessful arouse anyway is added the ridicule provoked by the pomposities and flum- meries of rank. Inequality in Britain is thereby rendered unnecessarily offensive. Not only does the public have to knuckle under to people who have proved their superiority, but also to people who, for the most part, have done nothing of the kind. This is to give egalitarians gratuitous grounds for complaint. The offensive degree of economic inequality required by the capitalist system is difficult enough to render palatable under the best of circum- stances, without compounding the problem by retaining all the old social grievances which accumulated during the age of privi- lege. So yes, we should do away with hered- itary peers and even, if I had my way, with life peers as well, not as a step towards cre- ating a more equal society but rather as a step towards helping to legitimise a less equal one.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, a noble is someone showing greatness of character, who is splendid, magnificent, stately, imposing, impressive, excellent and admirable. Originally the word was applied to those who had proved themselves by some outstanding service to the public weal, either on the field of battle, as war- riors, or in the council chamber, as states- men, or at the altar, as priests; to those, in short, who had chosen to live lives of excep- tional rigour or risk. Far from the nobles being people who enjoyed security and ease, they were people whose merit lay in the conscious choice of danger, those will- ing to submit themselves to a far greater measure of discipline than the ordinary mass of men who made no effort to excel. Nobility, in short, was not so much a favour as a conquest, something won, not given, and, far from being associated with a pas- sive life of ease and indulgence, it was asso- ciated with an active life of struggle and exertion.
Strictly speaking, therefore, most con- temporary hereditary noblemen, who haven't had to struggle to the top, are not noblemen at all. Precisely because they have inherited their privileges effortlessly, they lack the true distinction of nobility, which comes from a superlative act of will. Their nobility is imitative, in the sense of wanting to emulate an ancestor, rather than in the original sense of wanting to be intrin- sically creative in their own right. Today's meritocrat, therefore, who has made the effort to succeed, is far more noble, in the true sense, than most hereditary aristocrats who have made no effort at all.
Yet because today's meritocrat sits in the same House of Lords alongside yesterday's aristocrat, and in many cases bears a com- parable sounding title, the respect due to the former is overshadowed by the lack of respect due to the latter, and the whole idea of an elite deserving to play an espe- cially influential role in public affairs has been brought into disrepute.
The recent case of Earl Gowrie as head of the Arts Council illustrates this problem very nicely. Whether or not he made a mess of things I do not know. But I do know that if he had not been a hereditary earl, his critics would have found it much more dif- ficult to attack him; much more difficult to dismiss him as a mere grandee amateur. In short, Britain's new elite — amongst which, Lord Gowrie, by his own efforts, deserves to be numbered — suffers from a unique and crippling handicap. Once upon a time, when everybody loved a lord, and rank and precedence conferred authority, self-made men gained strength from being grafted onto the old aristocracy. Today the situa- tion has been turned on its head. Instead of a title adding to a man's stature, giving him a leg up, it detracts from it. Would the world think better of, say, Richard Branson if he became Lord Branson? Of course not. Such deference as he now enjoys would evaporate in an instant, to be replaced by, at best, affectionate mockery.
Elitism in France, where it is untainted by the stigma of inherited aristocracy, is far stronger than it is in Britain. Likewise inequality in America — another country untainted by aristocracy — is much less resented than it is in Britain. Possibly Prime Minister Blair, in deciding to eliminate the hereditary element in the House of Lords, supposes he is returning power to the peo- ple. In fact, he is doing nothing of the sort. He is giving more power to the elite, replac- ing a discredited ruling class without the will to impose the smack of firm government with one that need feel no such inhibition.
If this is his aim, then authoritarian Tories, or indeed any law-abiding citizen concerned with the current collapse of authority in all walks of life, must wish him well. I certainly do myself, in spite of having in the past done my paltry best to shore up the old ruling order. Sad to say, it was a Sisyphean labour. From the decaying roots, no new life could be engendered. It is best to start afresh. The current threats hanging over Oxford and Cambridge well illustrate the problem. These two great universities are charged with being too elitist. But why is this charge so much more lethal when levelled against Oxford and Cambridge than when levelled against Harvard and Yale, or the great elitist French establish- ments of higher education? Simply because in this country being elitist means filling these two universities with old Etonians, old Harrovians, old Wykehamists and alumni from all the other public schools once favoured by the aristocracy. In fact today's undergraduates from these classy schools have all won places on merit. But this doesn't stop the media portraying them as children of privilege, erstwhile snobbish brats wearing Eton collars, top hats and fancy waistcoats. So long as the public schools retain this image, so long will elitist education — with which republican France has no problem — remain a problem here.
Likewise with the establishment. Although the establishment nowadays is actually made up overwhelmingly of meri- tocrats, the fact that many of the merito- crats have become life peers makes it seem like a haven of privilege — which it has long since ceased to be. Much the same is true of all the old institutions — the judi- ciary, the City etc. — which, as a result of continuing to give a wholly false impression of living in the aristocratic past, lay them- selves open, quite unjustifiably, to egalitari- an shafts from Mr Murdoch's Sun.
Abolishing the hereditary element in Parliament's upper house will be only the first step towards creating a new and more acceptable social system, in which elitism can play its full and necessary part, proudly and unapologetically. But many more steps will have to follow, notably in the field of education. Tories, however, should join m this process with enthusiasm, since the result will not be to promote egalitarian- ism, but to cut out its poisonous sting.
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