No hiding place

A few weeks ago I was a little concerned when a creature dressed in the distinctive plumage of his class passed me on my way back from work to my south of the river home. I was pretty certain I’d spotted a member of the Bullingdon Club, a notorious group which has had more publicity that in probably deserves because Dave Cameron and Boris Johnson were both members. Only the very wealthy students get invited to join –the “uniform” which includes a pink tailcoat costs north of £3000.

When I looked up Bullingdon club I found the Wikipedia entry which covers it rather well I thought

“The Bullingdon Club is a socially exclusive student dining club at Oxford University, without any permanent rooms, infamous for its members’ wealth and destructive binges. Membership is by invitation only, and prohibitively expensive for most, given the need to pay for the uniform, dinners and damages”

More wordy but perhaps more informative is The First Post about David Cameron.

“At Oxford, he was a member of the Bullingdon Club, which is pretty much the embodiment of the very worst of the public school character: an arrogant contempt towards the “lower orders” (porters, waiters, scouts); a yobbish criminality; and a wallowing in utterly undeserved and unmerited privilege. It’s viciousness tempered by cretinism, and the strongest argument for class war I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen a few”

Imagine then my feelings when last week the peace of a summer night was breached by drunken singing. It’s not the singing I object to – I’ve always been a south of the river type and happy to be lulled to sleep by the reassuring sound of police sirens, foul language and breaking glass. Rather it was a line of tuneless song carried clearly through the limpid night – “we don’t give a fuck what you think – we are the famous Bullingdon”.

Oh damn. There goes the neighbourhood.