A man is known by the company he keeps. Part 2.
So, we all know about The Bullingdon Club – the “posh” Oxford drinking society – of which Cameron, Osborne and Boris Johnson were members at the same time. We know that Osborne, having only been to the relatively minor public school of St Paul’s, was named “oik”. We know that they were involved in a drunken fracas in a restaurant, breaking a window. That when booking their annual meal, they would lie about who they were booking for, as Oxford restaurants would not knowingly serve them.
I have to declare at this point that I went to Oxford, and attended a couple of drinking society events (I wasn’t a member of such a club – women simply weren’t, and I am also nowhere near posh or connected enough). They were both hosted by the Piers Gaveston club, were very debauched, and probably full of wealthy, blue-blooded people. One of the years I went, a News of the World reporter managed to infiltrate the party and the headline the next day “Camilla’s son makes a right charlie of himself” was accompanied by a description of the “live sex show” and the drugs being liberally taken.
Cameron’s membership of the Bullingdon Club casts some interesting light on him. Firstly, this club routinely trashed local restaurants, and then paid for the damage. This posh yobbishness shows they had no sense of reality – of how a small business would suffer from even having one night where they have to close (as they must have done, on the infamous night when Dave et al broke the window), but that they did have a very good sense of entitlement – it’s fine to kick off, and mummy and daddy will pay for the damage.
The next conclusion I draw from the whole episode is this. Dave correctly points out that we all made mistakes at University. I know that if I were ever to lose my senses and stand for political office, I would have a whole host of skeletons to push back into the closet. But what is worrying about it is the cronyism that it betrays in him. Far from being a man of the people, he still exists in his bubble of privelege. He moved effortlessly from Eton to Oxford to politics with these friends, who he has surrounded himself with since being leader of the opposition. People who wonder how Osborne has survived in the second most senior shadow cabinet role despite being clearly incapable of performing the office, need only remind themselves of the long friendship which exists between the two.
Recent headlines show the final illuminating point. The FT is carrying an article with information taken from a source who was present on the night of the restaurant being trashed. He says that a “policy of omerta has descended on the Cameron episode”, but far from having gone to bed early that night, Cameron was involved in the violence, and that he, Osborne, and Boris Johnson ran off down a side-street while their friends were being arrested. Strangely, this account shows that Johnson had also lied about the night, as he has vividly recalled his arrest and night in the cells. The full article makes interesting reading, and I for one would like to know how much honour a man who leaves his friends to take the blame for his own misdemeanours can have.
Reason #11: Cameron is demonstrably dishonest, and dishonourable.