Must Latin Still Denote Superiority

On seeing the front page headline “I’d Blast Corbyn into Orbit” lying on the train carriage floor. Written hastily as the adrenaline of disdain hit me.

The Eton Yob ascends the podium.

The Eton yob ascends.
The Eton yob ascends because he knows he deserves to.
The Eton yob has been assured that he is the rightful heir of a better destiny since he was manipulated from the womb.
The Eton Yob plays a low stakes game for him, but a high stakes game for those that will suffer from the shards of collateral damage. His friends can afford a higher hedge so as not to see the rifling in the bin for sandwich corners.
Bellow-mouthed, he threatens under the pretence of jocularity.
His education is superior, yet his vocabulary, despite its elongation, is impoverished.
A smattering of Latin or quotations from Herodotus create an illusion of deep intelligence, but his speeches are devoid of imagination or vision.
The Eton Yob has had all the that education, but knows nothing of beauty.
Compare his words with the language of William Blake or James Baldwin.
These are careless people because they can be.
The damage done is unlikely to dent them, an occasional demotion followed by an elevation to the Lords.
The papers that promote them pride themselves on a love of a Britishness, but this is a Britishness of “no hot water after 7am” and “No blacks, no Irish no dogs”, not a Britain of Alec Guinness dreams in an Ealing film.
It is a nostalgia for horses charging towards the jumped up sods who dared to protest for the right to avoid famine when a few had seven courses in aspic.
It is a Britain where success by “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps” is loudly advocated by people who had their bootstraps pulled up for them.
I am from a privileged class. I am fortunate. I can watch Ken Loach films and up my direct debit to charitable trusts safe in the knowledge that my likelihood of waiting for the bailiff and browsing spaghetti shapes at the food bank is lower than most, nearly all.
I have seen up close the arrogance that comes from an abundance of advantage that is taken as earned or not noticed at all.
I do not understand how many do not see through the meanness of the vision that returns us to landscape that you are born to it and others must die for you.

Sorry, just getting it out of my system.

I was talking to a veteran political correspondent on the eve of the first London mayoral election that Boris Johnson won. I asked if he thought Johnson could win and he replied, “I really don’t think the people are that stupid.” It seems we are discovering that when the means of mass communication are in the hands of so few, it gets easier and easier to be very stupid indeed.

The term “Eton Yob” is not meant exclusively for Etonians, nor is it meant to include all Etonians, it is meant to reflect a type.  I don’t want to be accused of hate speech.

Also, this is not anti all of those who use Latin. I am not anti-Latin.

I am putting a benefit for CLIC Sargent and Helen Crimmins starring Billy Bragg, Josie Long, Mark Thomas, Charlotte Church, Hollie Mcnish, James Acaster, Alistair Barrie and Chris Stokes. Details HERE.

I am on tour – Winchester, Bristol, York, Leeds, Norwich, Southport and plenty more