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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— June - July 2010
- contemplated the relative
poshnesses of Ireland’s Enda Kenny and Brian
Cowen. Both are classless (and only inciden-
tally unclassy). Britain is different. In a soci-
ety where people wear their class on their
shirts or forearms (sleeved or tattooed), they
are obsessed with it. Even our comrades in the
Guardian published an article about who was
posher – (Prime Minister) Cameron or (Deputy
Prime Minister) Clegg.
Both of them are sons of financiers, attended
major public schools and then went to Cambridge.
Both have the comportment, manners and what
has been described as ‘pointless handsomeness’
of a certain sort of well-bred Englishman. Both
have aristocratic connections.
►
Clegg’s father, Nicholas Clegg CBE (no less), is
chairman of United Trust Bank. His paternal
grandmother was a Baroness from Imperial
Russia whose aristocratic family fled after the
Russian Revolution. His paternal grandfa-
ther was the editor of the British Medical Journal
for years. Clegg’s great-great-grandfather, was
attorney general of the imperial Russian senate.
Louis Theroux, the Gonzo-style tv jourmalist, was
his fag at Westminster Public School and he spent
a gap year (that irritating staple of the white-shoe
Englishperson) as a skiing instructor in Austria.
Clegg, who worked for years in Brussels, speaks
English, Dutch, French, German and Spanish,
and his family owns a chateau in France.
But this isn’t enough. Instead they sniff he
was born in Chalfont St Giles (a sort of English
Kinnegad), and more ambivalently, that he’s an
unrecognisable hybrid Eurofop, not the well-
known English incarnation. His accent is not
easily defined (just a hint of Sheffield, where
his constituency is, and a mortifying ease with
the glottal stop). And the name Clegg…even his
wife insisted on calling all the children exotic
Spanish first names to counter it. A Clegg sounds
like a jobbie’s nail.
►
Cameron is a direct descendant of King
William IV (and so fifth cousin, twice removed
of Queen Elizabeth II). Cameron’s maternal
grandfather was High Sheriff of Berkshire, and
his maternal great-grandfather was Sir William
Mount, First Baronet, Conservative MP for
Newbury -. His wife, Samantha, is
the eldest daughter of Sir Reginald Sheffield
(and a descendant in three different ways of
King Charles II). Her mother is Viscountess
Astor. We assume – though he will hardly admit
it – that Cameron, like many of his forebears,
regarded it as preferable in a wife to be a bar-
onet’s daughter.
Samantha grew up on the -acre
Normanby Hall estate in Lincolnshire. Her
family also owns a large Yorkshire estate called
Sutton Park. “Cor blimey, guv” Sam Cam – a later
incarnation - allegedly took reverse elocution
lessons to make her sound a little less £ mil-
lion, went to all the wrong colleges and has a
tattoo – but it was all too late and makes no dif-
ference to her class.
Cameron grew up in Peasemore, Berkshire,
under the tutelage of Nanny Hoare - the
Cameron family loyal retainer who not surpris-
ingly doesn’t figure in official dispatches. The
experience of Jacob Rees Mogg, another toff –
the son of a former editor of the Times, [right]
shows what can happen if you allow others to
play the Nanny card. Do not expect to see Nanny
Hoare’s Master David albums in Hello Magazine,
any time soon.
On Desert Island Discs, Cameron described
how – while poor old Nick Clegg was presumably
wasting his time on yet another academic bau-
ble – he spent the inevitable gap year in Hong
Kong working for Jardine Matherson – a sort of
shipping agent - which one assumes is the last
outpost of unreconstructed colonialist buffery,
where he will have been updated on how to rule
places. While wending his way back to blighty
One had a Nanny
and went to Eton
The differences between David Cameron
and Nick Clegg
michael smith
British Elections
Clemeron
“Both have the
comportment,
manners and
what has been
described
as ‘pointless
handsomeness’
of a certain sort
of well-bred
Englishman“
he visited a beach at Yalta in the Soviet Union,
where he was approached by two Russian men,
speaking fl uent English. Cameron was later told
by an omniscient professor that it was “defi -
nitely an attempt” by the KGB to recruit him.
This is the ultimate accolade for any Nob. Clegg
would not have worked for anything containing
the name Jardine, would not have been in Yalta
and, if he had, would have reasoned with the
spooks in fl awless Russian.
Of course Cameron, presumably uncom-
promised, went to Cambridge and took a fi rst in
Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Along with
London Mayor, Boris Johnson, he was a mem-
ber of the élitist Cambridge Bullingdon dining
club, whose members major in getting drunk
and smashing restaurants. A famous photo, over
which he sued, depicts this comprehensively.
The Guardian has accused Cameron of rely-
ing on “the most prestigious of old-boy networks
in his attempt to return the Tories to power”,
pointing out that three members of his shadow
cabinet and members of his front-bench
team were “Old Etonians”.
While this might be just quaintly irritating
to a disinterested Irishperson, it’s infuriating to
many English people: the Milburn report, pub-
lished last year, shows that % of top civil serv-
ants, % of top journalists, % of MPs, %
of fi nance directors and % of judges come
from the % of the population who went to pri-
vate schools.
So why is the Conservative (note: Cameron
never uses the term Tory) Leader seen as upper
class while the Liberal Democrat Deputy passes
for an ordinary bloke? Firstly, Metropolitan
Westminster School, where Clegg went, is
just not as grand as Cameron’s alma mater,
Eton. Equally, Cameron’s Cambridge college,
Brasenose, was founded in : Clegg’s col-
lege, Robinson, was founded in .
Of course the policies are different too
– or at least they were for a while before the
Clemeron/Conserveral coalition. Clegg wanted
to dump Trident and join the Euro – though
no longer. Cameron would never dump ‘our
Trident’ but famously cut the Conservatives’
link with the European People’s Party in favour
of one with a bunch of nationalist loons; and
wanted to limit capital gains tax to estates over
£m. He’s much keener on re-legalising blood-
sports than his foreignish friend.
But it may well be that the policy diff erences
merely refl ect the diff erence in social back-
grounds. For example, back to bloodsports - a
damning photograph circulates of Cameron at
a shooting party weekend in Scotland looking
undeniably and eff ortlessly at home.
In any event the whole sphere is fraught
with pretence and hypocrisy, Labour’s Rasputin,
‘Lord’ Mandelson, accused Cameron of looking
down his “rather long toff ee nose”. But Mandy’s
grandfather was ‘baronet’ Herbert Morrisson
and he himself famously got into trouble with
the press in his Northern Constituency, in those
long ago days when he needed a constituency to
serve in government, for asking a chip van server
for “the guacamole” (they were mushy peas).
Of all the prejudices, class discrimination is
the most vicious. In Britain it kicks in as soon as
the fi rst word is spoken. Ireland has many prob-
lems of inequality and discrimination. One of our
few blessings is that at least we live in a society
where it is impossible to defi ne class.
n
,
where he was approached by two Russian men,
speaking fl uent English. Cameron was later told
by an omniscient professor that it was “defi -
to recruit him.
This is the ultimate accolade for any Nob. Clegg
would not have worked for anything containing
the name Jardine, would not have been in Yalta
and, if he had, would have reasoned with the
Labour’s classist election leafl et in North East Somerset
