Tuesday night was a blast. A fine evening was polished off with a fine meal, in a fine restaurant, in a fine little village. A village, in fact, that featured in the national press a few years ago as containing a very high percentage of millionaires.
Which would be why, naturally, there was some loud-mouthed knob-gobbler on an adjacent table, availing himself of pricey cuisine, whilst explaining (deliberately?) loudly to his partner how the country was ruined by Thatcher, and that parents who send their kids to private or grammar schools are only doing so because they are 'snobs', are merely massaging their own egos, and have no care for the welfare of their children.
He didn't actually have 'cunt' tattooed on his forehead, but if he'd been sitting in the same seat, at the same time of day, on a Saturday night when the local rugby club tend to dine there, he may well have left decorated as such.
I was too mellow to react in customary style, and I didn't want this prick to put a dampener on my evening. A quick glance around other tables tended to suggest I was correct in my lethargy. Far from his pronouncements being taken seriously, there were quite a few knowing smirks.
You see, he was extremely well-spoken, and impeccably dressed. His very presence on a Tuesday night would lend itself to the assumption that he was probably rather well off himself and had, perhaps, benefitted from such an education to be so. Now, if that is the case, his argument falls flat and he is no more a beacon of socialism than Polly fucking Toynbee. The most execrable trait in those who have gained success on the back of education which they despise, is the inverted snobbery which dictates that the ladder must be kicked away for others who may well aspire to the same.
Now, there is the remote chance (you had to be there, and know the area, really) that he was a state boy done good. And if so, I would truly congratulate him. Except for the fact that, as socialists do, he was advocating a destruction of choice for those with whom his politics disagree. His view also shows a complete lack of regard for the consequences of the policies he was espousing, as Eamonn Butler mentioned yesterday.
Scrapping private education would place a huge additional burden on the state – leaving it with larger class sizes, or leaving taxpayers with higher taxes – all to fund the education of wealthier kids who the rest of us aren't paying for right now.
So, if this numbskull's ideas were to be followed through, the options for state school attendees would be further squeezed, and anyone who wished to become the state boy done good in the future would have a much more difficult task.
The ladder being kicked away. Again.
It matters not how this odious fucknut came into being, or how he managed to be successful enough to be enjoying an over-priced meal in a millionaires' playground in the middle of a recession. Either way, his disregard for others is stunning.
Such is the evil, selfish, nature of socialism. Politics of envy or assuaging of self-guilt. Neither is useful, but both are truly damaging.
