News that the middle-class elite are increasingly all-powerful these days as evidenced by Sir John Major’s recent speeches on social mobility surely will come as no surprise.
It has long been apparent that those able to access the best schools inevitably have the best opportunities of future advancement in whatever arena they choose.
Of course this is not set in stone – everybody knows a Tim (nice but dim) – but the odds are stacked in favour of the 7% of kids who attend private schools.
In Fifty Not Out – still copies available under my desk – I referred to the paucity of opportunities for kids in pure sporting terms at state schools, many bereft of playing fields or teachers that have ever worn a tracksuit outside of Asda.
Sir John Major is bang on to raise this point but it’s not actually clear what anybody can do to redress the balance. After all, money talks and as with many inequalities in life, the gap seems to have got wider in recent years between the affluent and not so.
David Cameron, having hauled himself up from the gutter of…Eton…once again seems a little adrift of popular consent in his assertion that “what counts is not where you come from but where you are going”.
It is fair to point out that New Labour’s period of office probably saw the acceleration of this divide; simply put the elite, it appears, really have never had it so good.
Get Your Tits Out…For John Lewis!
The silly season is truly upon us; Nanny State is now dishing out John Lewis vouchers to mums that breast feed rather than babies glugging from a bottle of semi-skimmed.
To encourage young mums they are dishing out £200 of vouchers; but how do they monitor it? Are there new Government Tit Inspector jobs going? If so, where and can you do it on a volunteer basis?
Apparently breast feeding can boost your IQ and can also lower obesity levels? What a complete load of bollocks.
Are you telling me that suckling Little Johnny will really keep him out of MacDonalds in later life or get him to Eton?
More likely he will just become obsessed with boobs…like the rest of us weaned on extra-creamy Gold Top.
BT’s Big Gamble
BSkyB have suddenly got serious competition for the first time in many years with new kids on the block, BT, splashing the cash once again following its acquisition of a portion of the recent Premier League television deal.
Having already paid around £700m for three years of Premier League divas diving and having tantrums, BT has stuffed its rival out of sight by paying an eye-watering £1bn for a similar length deal for UEFA’s Champions and Europa Leagues…a better quality of sulking and cheating.
For the likes of Manchester United and the rest currently sat at the top table this is a continuance of the deluge of money the elite can carve up. Who said what goes up always comes down?
The Gravy Plane
At the last election I was faced with a strange choice. Of the mainstream parties I only knew one candidate; the problem was he was the Liberal Democrat, David Ward, and voting Liberal Democrat is something you only do when you are senile.
Still, David is a good bloke and a local lad to boot, having represented the ward on t’council for some time so I opted for better the devil you know. Plus he supports Bradford City.
Being an MP for Bradford has it challenges you would have thought, so imagine my surprise when I read that my MP was off on a three day “fact finding trip” (commonly known as a jolly) to Jordan.
This is so David can “better understand the ongoing conflict in Syria and illegal Israeli settlements…” blah, blah, blah…what about illegal settlements in Bradford…plenty of those to be going on with?
Three years ago he was negotiating zebra crossings and pot-holes and now he is a Middle East envoy? Still if Tony Blair can swan around the Middle East as a peace envoy – having blown a large portion of it to bits – then an MP’s shame has no limits.
Great work if you can get it.
Property Ladder
Bradford Council claims to have “listened to the people” having reduced its house building plan covering 2013-30 from 45,500 new homes to 42,100.
Someone tell me how the current influx of people into the city are going to afford a new house or do they mean a giant caravan park in the city centre?
More John Lewis
Here we go with the annual competition to see which supermarket can come up with the most nauseous advert of the season.
As usual M&S have splashed the cash on a load of pretentious nonsense whilst Tesco have employed 95 year-old Rod Stewart to warble through a family scene enabled only by the bounty of Tesco, missing out the sequel where they all throw up the shit food.
However, once again it is John Lewis who have everyone talking with a ridiculous cartoon starring a vegetarian, peace loving bear and a hare who shops online at John Lewis; that is some affluent hare.
Here’s how it goes. Hare wakes bear from his winter slumber and bear is really pleased to see an alarm clock…yeah right!
Do you know any bears that like being woken up or would not tear the hare to bits for a morning snack? Or have I not quite caught the spirit?
Bah Humbug!
Strange Noises
Not all of us go to the gym to exercise; there are nice comfy machines you can stretch out on and gently close your eyes for a few moments – unless some annoying hare sticks an alarm clock under your nose.
The other night though I was drawn from my slumber by the following sounds on the leg press next to me.
“Big push…squeeze one for me…go on…you know you want to…it’s coming…come on…..”
I hardly dare open my eyes.
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