No.93 - James. May I Introduce John?
Dear James,
John is my friend. He also happens to be a plumber, a carpenter, an electrician, a gardener - in other words a Man for All Seasons, a Man of All Trades, a Mr Fixit Extraordinaire. He was doing some work in my house yesterday, October 31st, the day that Boris had promised to die in a ditch rather than ask for an extension. John and I always enjoy a good chat.
It is now November 1st and we’re still in the EU. No ditch has been identified. No corpse found. But does Boris care? Certainly not on the surface. Because Boris is a skater, a gambler. Everyone surely, can see that?
Apparently not. Yesterday, when I asked John about the coming election, he shocked me to the core. “I’m probably going to vote for Boris”. Now John (not his real name) is a good man, an intelligent man, not political but a hard worker who gets on with everyone. Everyone loves John. After his response I asked him, ‘Why?”. “Because he’s knows how to get things done.”, he replied. “Because you can trust him.”
As you can imagine James, I was more than shocked. I was horrified. It caused me to revisit my own view on Boris. Perhaps you were right all along in your career warping journey since 2016? How could a man like John believe in the man I have described so often before as a dishonest gambler? Now I do a nice line in self-doubt. It comes from my relatively lowly background whereby confidence – that antithesis to doubt – only comes later in life with professional success or through life experience convincing you that you are as good as the next. With Boris that formula is turned on its head. Confidence comes early to those with private education. Later there will be professions attached to that primal confidence through internships or knowing the right people but by the time many such people fail professionally, it is too late. Their confidence rolls on, empty of substance but present for ever in its social aspects. And that is Boris Johnson. He has failed as Foreign Secretary, is failing as a PM and yet he continues to act as if he is a great success story. So why can’t John see through all this?
Self-confidence comes in layers. The assured, public layer is what private education provides in spoonfulls. It endows a sense of primacy, a sense of entitlement, a sense of effortless exclusivity over the rest of us. It is not on the school’s syllabus but comes from the need for many of these kids to survive in the loveless (see mama every few weeks) context of the school itself. Any weakness in this juvenile jungle is severely punished by their peers and so they must, by definition, project confidence to survive. That means the premature but hard headed projection of a ‘self’ - as sportsman, as orator, as swot or as bully, We, the state educated, have to grow our confidence slowly, bit by bit, supported by a home (see mum twice a day!) through trial and error, growing our ‘selfs’ unprotected by the projection of the many false selves of the privately educated. Many of this caste who do not have such professional success, just give up and accept life as it has always been i.e feeling that those born to rule are their protectors and saviours. I call it an advanced patriarchy and I think it may help to explain John’s mindset.
In parliament we witness daily the various versions of polite smugness and overt bombast of the privately educated party and its various imitators. Mr Corbyn, although himself, educated at a ‘minor’ public school, has none of the vocal depth or tonal nuance of Boris. He has to shout and shouting is no match for the false assurance of the party of the senior public schools. We are all used to it. It is part of our national culture. And on such fragile grounds are elections often decided.
I had a long chat with John yesterday. He listened. He tells me again, he doesn’t do politics. He’s too busy. You yourself James were, I believe, state school educated but have now schooled yourself in the finer arts of your adopted party. You may be surprised to know that I’m not against public schools. Many of them are excellent. I do believe however, that we need a political formula for sharing that excellence on a much, much fairer basis. Until we do, our current system will continue to divide our nation.
Remember James, there is a John or a Jean in all of us. If you want John and Jean to become fully engaged in our society rather than just reserved for ‘lesser roles’ we will have to fundamentally change our post-feudal society. And only then will your party come anywhere near to being a One Nation party. But that, I guess, is some hope for a party seeded in the very institutions described above!
All the above does have a name, James. It’s called, ’The National Interest'. Think about it?
Kind regards,
BH - Your Concerned Constituent