…The vanities of posh men… centre on an ancient system that trains a narrow caste of people to run our affairs….

Ever questing to penetrate British lingo, I wobble over “public” versus “private” education in the kingdom’s parlance. In my country, private school is where the wealthy go, and public school is for the rest of us. It’s a system straightforwardly corrupt and named. In contrast, John Harris’s terminology respecting the UK variant seems crucivalent and meanderish to me. Perhaps that’s how the lords wish it.

… This is essentially a story about privilege, and the shamelessness and insensitivities that come with it. More specifically, it centres on the renaissance of an archetype that has been nothing but trouble: the ambitious, dizzyingly confident public schoolboy [my emphasis], convinced of his destiny but devoid of any coherent purpose… Brexit, let us not forget, is a direct result of the latter-day dominance of politics by the privately educated [my emphasis].

(John Harris, “Britain’s overgrown Eton schoolboys have turned the country into their playground,” theguardian.com, 5-2-21)

(c) 2021 JMN