Reports of burning money in front of a beggar as an initiation may be questionable (albeit totally believable). Completely trashing restaurants and pubs and then avoiding the consequences by contemptuously throwing money at the owners is frequent and well documented behavior, with plenty of interviews with local pub and restaurant owners as evidence. It’s not just press reports, either. Restaurants won’t accept bookings for them, as they’ve long had a reputation for this behavior (they use false names when reserving rooms for this reason). Bullingdon Club members engage in more than just youthful hijinks.
Even if that weren’t true (and it absolutely is), the fact remains that the club represents how Cameron has spent his life cocooning himself into an incredibly elitist, super-upper-class environment with similar friends.
It’s not an ad hominem attack if it’s entirely fucking true.
Well, quite.
So in other words, no evidence will suffice. Ok.
Not being able to use the media as evidence, all I can fall back on is having lived in Oxford for the last ten years.
The bullingdon club are as bad, if not worse, than portrayed in the press. I have never encountered them in person thankfully (if that happened I would probably have a PTSD flashback event and a GBH charge from the police), but I have seen the aftermath. Other people would end up in court facing prison for what they do, it is lucky if they get fined.
George Osborne was well known for doing that when he was a member, I am not surprised that new members have to emulate him.
The Tories seem to having a bit of an issue with slips lately.
To be perfectly honest, no, I don’t.
The women I was at uni with were cultivated, composed and generated respect. They were from dozens of countries, and all sorts of backgrounds.
I had six years of higher education at four institutions in the UK and France, and to what may seem to you my chagrin, nothing like this ever happened.
I confess, I studied dry subjects like law, economics, french. Maybe over in the english department they did this?
Oxbridge is a world to itself. No problem. But if you run round [semi] naked, don’t complain when people make a deal out of it. You caused a stir.
That said - I have only heard these stories coming from Oxbridge, Durham, Exeter and St Andrews. And only from public school graduates.
I’m not suggesting the actions are acceptable, I just challenge the notion it’s happening as routine as some people suggest, and indeed that every member of the Bullingdon club (how many members does it have?) engages in despicable actions. The broader point that seems to be being made is that because the members have the gall to pay for the mess they cause, this makes the problem worse.
I just wish people would focus on actual problems with what David Cameron is doing if they think there are things wrong, not attempt to smear him with a reputation of a club he was once a member of. The latter is the worst kind of tabloid journalism. This story amounts to click bait given the entire disingenuous nature of the headline.
Tosh.
Nepotism is one of the most severely corrosive aspects of a society. The best politics are transparent, and the voters only trust the system when they cannot perceive corrosive elements.
No-one operating at any public level of seniority is immune to influence. Joe Public does not have access for influence. Bullingdon Club members will. Old Etonians do.
The incredible thing about the current government is just how inter-twined it is. From a PPE perspective, I am incredulous. Poor, stupid voters, allowing this situation to arise.
So the tabloids are merely fulfilling an important role of illuminating the situation. The broadsheets, such as they are today, disengage from this. The implications of negative publicity towards the Conservatives on share prices of media firms are obvious, and the opportunity for undue influence quite apparent.
I’d love to see some authentic criticisms from you of David Cameron’s actions. Please yield them up.
I quite like that.
It’s more the monstrous sense of entitlement that their money & connections get them out of criminal charges for their outrageous behaviour. You sure do love those Lizards, doncha?
I’m fond of claret myself, but the ponies? Neigh.
That article is a thing of great beauty. The Boris Johnson line is, if anything, better than the Cameron one.
I’m sorry, I don’t get the reference to Lizards. It’s quite a claim that their money and connections have got them out of criminal charges. Any support for that?
Any proof it hasn’t? Because, having money and connections would seem to preclude there, you know, being any record of it. And it is well documented, as has been explained to you by multiple people, that they do exactly that. As you said, they have the ‘gall’ to pay for their antics.
‘Lizards’ is a wry bit of intellectual shorthand on my part for scions of the Establishment who get to do whatever the fuck they want (and poke mild fun at David Icke. Win/win). You do love 'em though.
What? Let’s go and lynch them then. We don’t need no stinking proof! It’s enough just to hate them and their money and their sense of entitlement! Bring out the guillotine! Viva la revolution!
Yeah, that’s exactly what I said. Jesus…
If the now Prime Minister and the now Mayor of London engaged in this behaviour even once, that’s pretty reprehensible. Being students at the time wouldn’t excuse them, since they were presumably-responsible adults.
If it’s been happening since their time at uni, and is still happening, it’s behaviour that would get the participants jailed and fined if they were less elevated and their club were a club of football supporters, say. If it hasn’t happened since their time in the Bullingdons, then that says something about their influence, I would say.
“Some people” being the pub and restaurant owners reporting this behavior? The reporters who have gathered the stories of this happening? Since it’s frequent enough to get the club blacklisted by local pub owners and it’s been going on for numerous decades, it’s clearly part of the club culture of which prospective members are aware. Which means the act of joining the club represents an act of accepting that culture by the members. And again, it’s not just this one activity, but the entire nature of the club, the entitled elitism it represents and the insular culture of the super-priviledged who are running the nation. And that’s incredibly relevant when a former member claims to be a champion of the very people of whom he’s spent his life being estranged and contemptuous. This wasn’t a “slip,” it was an accidental admission of how he and his fellow party members actually feel.
No, we don’t have proof, other than having seen the mess they leave behind. No other student social club here does anything like that, just them.
Do you have an explaination why they get let off criminal charges, when if a kid from Blackbird Leys did that they would be expecting a suspended prison sentence if they are lucky.
It looks like some of the members of the club from five years ago did get ASBOs though, which i imagine they took as seriously as most other people who get them. Still, you don’t get an ASBO for nothing.
