Sunday 18 July 2021

Is there no end to this posh barbarism?



Here is Ewen Fergusson, newly appointed by Boris Johnson to the Committee on Standards in Public Life. I cannot think of anyone more suitable for this job. He has wide-ranging experience of standards. Here he is with Boris Johnson as a member of Oxford’s Bullingdon Club, an all-male dining club, known for its wealthy members, grand banquets and bad behaviour, including vandalism of restaurants, bars and hotels. Membership is expensive, with £3,000 tailor-made uniforms, and a tradition of spiteful personal and public damage. When Johnson was a member the initiation rites included tearing up a £50 note in front of the homeless. A former member told the Daily Mirror, “Women aren’t allowed to formal dinners but at informal gatherings we would make them get down on all fours like a horse, whinny, and bring out hunting horns and whips. Yes they were degraded to some extent, but it was all done respectfully.” Is there no end to this posh-barbarism? But at least Jeremy Corbyn was stopped from being PM.