Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley, once joked to me in an interview that he regarded himself as a self-made man because he hadn’t gone to Eton.
He just made sure his sons did. Stanley himself went to, “a good, tough, rugger playing school” called Sherbourne which operated a Dickensian-sounding fag system in which older boys could drop a pencil and demand a younger one pick it up, or beat the living daylights out of them if they refused.
It didn’t put him off sending his own children to boarding school because his view has always been that, “bringing up children is much too important to be left to parents.”
Boris’s current predicament suggests that despite Stanley’s hopes, private education wasn’t a good substitute parent.
Honours system ‘epitomises the Britain we are’
What does a fag system give you other than a shameless sense of entitlement, and the idea that someone ‘inferior’ always cleans up after you if you are powerful enough to make them?
It epitomises the Britain we currently are. A class-ridden cesspit of corruption and cronyism in which our honours system has become a laughable tin badge either for those in the upper echelons, or those who lick the boots of the upper echelons the cleanest.
Anyone who has an honour for genuine public service must feel like the shareholder who watches their life-investment plummet.
What’s it worth? Who would want it? The number of people turning down an honour has doubled in recent years, not just because of misgivings about the racist history of “British Empire” but because honours are currency for political favours and donations.
As film director Ken Loach once said when refusing his, “It’s not a club you want to join when you look at the villains who have got it.”
And what villains, indeed, they have become. It is scant consolation that the House of Lords Appointments Commission has blocked 8 of Johnson’s nominations.
Or even that Rishi Sunak has discovered he has, indeed, got a vertebral column, telling Johnson that if he doesn’t like his refusal to overrule the Commission’s decision, “that’s tough”.
It felt almost shocking. Like a holy monk using a four-letter word, but nonetheless – belatedly – well done Rishi.
But that should not be the end of it. Michael Gove and Grant Shapps are desperately decreeing that life has “moved on” and none of us care anymore. Really? I think we will be the judge of that, don’t you?
The fact remains that a disgraced Prime Minister, forced to resign for public wrongdoing, is still allowed an Honours list in which he can nominate family, friends, and cronies.
Those blocked included Stanley Johnson, nominated for ehm – being daddy. And sending Boris to Eton. (Current annual fee £46,296.)
Also, Nadine Dorries for being his eternally loyal bestie in the face of all lies, duplicity and obfuscation.
His hairdresser belongs in the Tower, not the OBE queue
As for those who made it under the wire…His hairdresser. What? She belongs in the Tower, not the OBE queue.
Dame Priti Patel. For what? Services to bullying? As for the ridiculous Sir Jacob Rees Mogg, what earthly use has he been to anyone who doesn’t own a stately home and a Mercedes? What is his knighthood for? Services to top hats and penny farthings?
Stanley Johnson was, like his son, no stranger to the toffs’ ability to be charming in a superficial, manipulative way.
“I say, would you mind awfully not mentioning what I just said? Would you?” Stanley’s comments about Eton, privilege and parenting – made long before Boris became prime Minister – reveal a lot.
As do the comments of actor, Damian Lewis, who once described the effect of leaving home to attend Eton. “There’s a sudden lack of intimacy with a parent, and your ability to get through that defines you emotionally for the rest of your life.”
Well, that explains the behaviour of a large proportion of our politicians. It also explains a system bogged down by a sense of unearned entitlement, illustrated by Johnson’s outrage that he can’t manipulate the system to his own ends.
After all, he’s special and different. I’ll party if I want to – but you can’t! The Foreign Office bolsters this system by annually spending 371,827 pounds of our public money – yes, yours and mine – to send the children of top diplomats to Eton.
Is that your priority for your hard-earned cash? It certainly isn’t mine.
Personally, Boris will continue to be fine, of course. His kind always are.
Being a disgraced ex-prime minister hasn’t prevented him earning £4.2 million from commitments across the world, according to the latest register of MPs’ financial interests.
But the gloss on his bank account cannot hide the tarnish on an honours system that is now all about grace and favour.
But never mind, people of Great Britain. There’s still Liz Truss’s honours list to come.
Catherine Deveney is an award-winning investigative journalist, novelist, television presenter and Scottish Newspaper Columnist of the Year 2022.