The more the Tory leadership contenders try to show that they are not from a privileged background, the more ridiculous it gets.
While Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss forced to trot about being high school kids, poor Tom Tugendhat has the handicap of being an old boy from one of the best public schools, St Paul’s.
It’s really cool to hear all the Oxbridge and public school TV interviewers spit out accusations about the candidates’ education as if they were accusing them of pedophilia.
Rishi Sunak suffers from a double load of privileges. His main albatross has been head boy at Winchester (another top school).
While Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss are forced to trot about being high school kids, poor Tom Tugendhat has the handicap of being an old boy from one of the best public schools, St Paul’s.
There is a small amount of harm reduction in the fact that he was present as a purse boy of immigrant parents. But he went on to marry Akshata Murthy, the multimillionaire daughter of one of India’s most fabulously wealthy men.
In recent years, Rishi’s backstory might have been considered inspiring. A perfect demonstration that a weedy looking child of Indian descent in this country can climb to the top of the tree. Not now.
That’s why any parent who harbors the idea that their child would have a better chance of becoming world kings (as Boris Johnson aspired to) if they can get them to a top private school should reconsider.
Rishi Sunak is struggling with a double whammy of privilege. His main albatross has been head boy at Winchester (another top school)
Sure, I wonder if it was necessary to pay the huge Westminster School money I’ve been doing for years. I imagined it was a place with great teachers where my child would learn how to learn and use that knowledge.
Westminster is the alma mater of political thinkers, including Nigel Lawson, Tony Benn, Nick Clegg and John Russell, the Whig Prime Minister. But by the time my son got there, he had lost all claim to encouraging political opinion – he was nearly expelled from school by his uninspired principal for participating in the tuition marches of the time.
Fortunately for him and me, my son never had any political aspirations. So the scar from such an eminent public school education is not as damaging as it could be.
The race to prove you’ve had no privileges doesn’t just happen in politics. But right now it turns out to be one of the most ridiculous factors in deciding who is going to run this country.
Liz and Kemi can’t give heels the boot
I feel a tinge of sympathy for the female Tory leadership candidates who have chosen to squeeze themselves into form-fitting dresses and high heels in this heatwave as if they were queuing in Alan Sugar’s boardroom on The Apprentice. Kemi and Suella in blue, Liz tied up in red.
I find that hot weather makes me hoard water like a camel, requiring me to wear the loosest of clothes, which are generally hugely unflattering. However, baggy dresses and flip flops aren’t really an option when you’re under the lenses of the national media.
Is Gary worth more than the fearless Lyse?
THE annual BBC Salaries issue always provides hours of bathing fun. Gosh, is Gary Lineker really worth more than a million pounds a year? Is Lyse Doucet, who risks her life to bring news from Ukraine, worth less than a fifth of the money the Match Of The Day presenter gets?
And what do we think of the £5,000 pay raise for Question Time host Fiona Bruce?
I’m sure there would be inequalities as fascinating as they are ridiculous if other institutions were to disclose their employees’ wages. After all, while the desire to make money is something that motivates many of us, as a nation we want nothing more than to criticize those who achieve it. Even if they are state trained, like the two top names on the BBC list, Gary Lineker and Zoe Ball.
Childbirth guru who pushed us all
Catherine Hill, who died recently, was a fashionable childbirth guru in the 1980s and 1990s, most recently teaching the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in-person prenatal classes.
For those of us who paid for our weekly gathering all those years ago, she was a reassuring guide through the nerve-wracking later days of pregnancy. In her small glass conservatory in Chiswick, we learned how to sniff and puff and most importantly what (and what not) to expect from our partners. During my days at Vogue magazine, there was never any doubt about free time to roam the city taking lessons from this good-natured Jean Brodie.
Unlike Miss Brodie’s students in Muriel Spark’s brilliant novel, Catherine Hill’s “girls” weren’t for her life.
But we do have a nostalgic fondness for each other. While I can’t claim that I’ve become good friends with any of my classmates, when we meet, we’d all like to know how the newborn babies we’ve put in their car seats to introduce to each other are doing. 27 years later.
Airlines perfect the last minute disappointment
We were due to travel to Athens at the end of August for a wedding. But surprise, surprise, the flight has been cancelled.
When looking at rebooking options, I was surprised to see how many flights there were from Heathrow to Athens on the same day. That is the problem: there are simply too many flights in the first place.
Isn’t the solution to shorten timetables, instead of causing a pandemonium by canceling flights ad hoc?
It sounds like common sense to prevent travelers from booking seats on flights that may never take off. But airlines are so afraid of giving up their precious Heathrow landing sites that they’d rather offer the flight, take our money — and let us down at the last minute.
A French favorite crosses the Channel
PETANQUE, long the cherished game of the French provincial town squares, has regained popularity on this side of the Channel.
As a recent convert, I’m here to say that it beats mindfulness as a relaxation technique. On a summer’s evening under the trees, the plop of the boules on the sandy field only needs the clicking of crickets to give you that holiday feeling.