The Tory Posh School problem in a nutshell
I blogged yesterday about the oddity that the current Tory Party seems obsessed with promoting public schoolboys in general, and Eton alumni in particular, up the greasy pole; odd, because no privately schooled Tory has won a general election since Macmillan in 1959.
The problem was fairly neatly illustrated on 10 O'clock Live last night, when Janet Street Porter berated the 'Eton educated Ian Duncan Smith' for encouraging pensioners who didn't need their benefits to give them back. Her suggestion was how dare this posh bloke tell us we need to give our money back.
Now there's no denying IDS is posh; but he didn't go to Eton. he didn't go to public school at all. He went to a RC Comprehensive in Solihull.
But therein lies the problem for the Tories. The posh boy public school not-one-of-us narrative has stuck. And the 'one of us' Tory voters who so venerated Mrs Thatcher, (Basildon man et al) are searching for a new home - and have found one in UKIP.
The Tories a bit stuffed.
Ho hum. What a shame
ATF 2 May 2013 at 12:28
10 O'clock Live never fails to come across like a Sixth Form Commm Room revue...
Didn't know IDS had lived in Solihull