UKC

Did anyone hear the clip of the new cabinet banging their desks to celebrate their 3 seat majority in parliament?

I went to a sort of posh state school that had a bit of the public school culture: house system, boarding houses, intake from prep schools (I came from the local comp as a day kid I might add), fagging, cricket, rugby and hockey and plenty of snobbishness to us day kids who were generally nicknamed 'Kev' or 'Darren'. They were charmers our prep school brethren.

Anyway, it reminded me of my first day there and my year being introduced one by one to the rest of the house to the sound of desks being banged furiously. Always struck me as a public school cultural thing.

I was both a little bit depressed and amused at the banging of desks by our beloved public school educated betters in cabinet today whilst being told that they were the party that represented the working people.

Am I just revealing my inverted snobbishness or did anyone else let out a deep sign of despair?

In reply to Escher:

They do it in the Scottish Parliament too.

In reply to rogerwebb:


And in lots of places overseas - I was quite thrown when it happened after a presentation I gave in Vienna.

In reply to rogerwebb:

Interesting, I've obviously lived a sheltered life

In reply to Escher:
just sounds like some groups of lads down the pub when a mate walks in or when that guy who always hides from the round actually gets up and gets them in.

I have been in several situations including a business conference where people banged on tables and stamped their feet on the floor to acknowledge the achievement of a member of the committee. I had no idea what was going on, I didn't even know the conference was doubling up as an award ceremony or who he was or what the hell he had achieved!!

If I am honest, to me at least we are in a strange point in time. It seems large parts of the population want to be seen as 'us and them'/belonging to a different group to those over there etc and will look way too deeply into the actions of others etc.

I seen it on the news and I thought..absolutely nothing about it!!

In reply to Alan M:

this.

Dan Snow on panorama last night made the point that most folk in the UK have very similar views on most things, and wanted to stay as part of a United Kingdom. At the same time there appears to be constant attempts by a number of political groups to make divisions appear.

What happened to mature political debate and tolerance?

In reply to Escher:

I think it's just used as a way to "make some noise" in appreciation... a bit like banging the barriers at bike races, triathlons etc

In reply to Escher:


I didn't realise we went to the same school

In reply to Escher:

I went to a comprehensive and we did it there. Don't think it's a class thing.

There have always been anarchists. Just that now the anarchists are more easily able to organise themselves into groups using the internet.

Kind of ironic really or maybe an organised anarchy is just an oxymoron.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

I've seen a few people beginning posts with "this.

"

I am mystified as to its meaning and usage.

In reply to wercat:



^^
This

In reply to billb:

Ah, it needs one or more hats! Thank you.

In reply to Escher:

How many of them actually went to a 'posh state school' ? genuine question.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

Standard form of academic applause in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.

CB

In reply to GrahamD:


What do you mean by a posh state school?

In reply to tony:


London Orarory would probably count.

In reply to tony:


Its a quote from the OP. I was curious as to what they meant by it and whether this was a perceived problem or not.

In reply to GrahamD:

The school I went to was for 13-18 year olds, similar to a grammar school but not titled as such. Had an intake of the brighter kids from the local area and local comp plus fee paying boarders from prep and private schools. There was, from some of the prep school kids, distinct snobbishness towards the comp kids as I said which has of course coloured my view of some of them and perhaps my view of private school educated top level politicians.

My school was 400-500 hundred years old and as I said had a lot of the private school culture despite it being a state school. My question was intended to see whether banging desks indicated that there was an overriding private school thing going on in the cabinet and it seems that that isn't the case (or at least this is no indication of that from that activity) and perhaps I have a personal bias towards 'toffs' and the answers reveal I have. And I don't actually know beyond Cameron, Osborne and Boris where they did actually go to school.

My only experience of the banging of desks is at that school and only on one occasion and it looks like I've wrongly made a connection between private school culture and doing such a thing and perhaps revealed a biased view of the tory cabinet (or perhaps not ).

Thanks it's been an education!

In reply to Escher:

Its probably more a 'man' thing.

Whatever, I went to school in Ireland (Christian Brothers) and it was never done there, nor at my uni.

Its not something I would do. To be honest, I find it crass (not to be confused with Crass)

In reply to Escher:

So what proportion of the cabinet fall into your classification of having 'private school culture ?'. Cameron and Osbourne, obviously, but what about the rest ? Just curious as you often see references to the Conservative MPs as 'toffs' and the cabinet in particular. Not that I voted for her, but my MP Heidi Allen hardly fits the stereotype:

"Originally from Notton, a very rural village in Yorkshire, Heidi has 18 years of business experience in a variety of industries.....For the last six years, Heidi has been the managing director of her family’s manufacturing business, which was started by her parents in 1978......plus a degree in Astrophysics from University College London."

In reply to GrahamD:

According to this http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/12-charts-that-show-just-how-... 45% of the cabinet attended private schools. That of course may be an indication of the the 'old boys network', that private schools provide a better standard of education and therefore entries to Oxbridge or a multitude of other answers, hard to draw any conclusions.

When one has a bias about class it is hard if not impossible to ascertain whether what I see is the truth e.g. 'that the Tory party is full of toffs' or whether I only see what I want to see. I imagine is it somewhere in the middle but I think the point is reasonably moot. I would say it is more the majority of the policies that don't sit well with me and associating that with private school education is just an easy generalisation for me to take up. But regardless of their background it is their worldview I take issue with. However, I have no alternative answers that may actually work in the real world and that is probably true of most of the voting public. I would just prefer a more liberal worldview to be prominent.

In reply to Escher:

Thanks for that link. Its pretty selective in its messaging (the article obviously is trying to accentuate the discrepancy between the Conservative cabinet and the rest of the country.

I can see why there is a level of resentment for private school (reeking as it does of unfair privilege) but I don't see why that is carried on to Oxbridge education. Look at lists of globally recognised Universities and these two stand out from the UK. It is not easy to get into or suceed in Oxford or Cambridge no matter how privaleged your background.

In reply to Escher:

I suspect stats for a Labour (or frankly any party) cabinet wouldn't be much different.
It should hardly be a surprise that intelligent, well educated people are over represented. There's also the lag factor, ethinic minorities don't come here and immediately throw themselves into politics, it takes a few generations before they start to even get involved let alone rise to the top. Similarly women are, for historical reasons, under represented at the top of most professions.
All these things are changing but it takes time. You could have a more representative cabinet if that was your priority but it would contain a lot of people who weren't up to the job.
If we really wanted the cabinet to mirror society it would need to have a lot more thick people, a few racists and other assorted bigots, some criminals and perhaps a few people who don't really speak functional English for good measure

In reply to pec:


You mean a Con/Ukip coalition?

In reply to pec:



That is very highly debateable and factors in the very big assumption that the current lot or indeed previous cabinets were or are up to the job.

That's the trouble with politics, that it is a double job: running the country when you are in power and the climb the greasy pole/back stabbing/never answering a straight question/if your face fits/media trained weirdness. Whether ability to perform the latter makes you well qualified for the former is very much an unanswered question. Especially in the age of the career politician who comes straight out of education into a party.

In reply to Removed User:


No.

In reply to Escher:


There is a popularly held assumption that all politicians are incompetant, corrupt etc for which there is no real evidence but its a convenient myth to buy into because then we can blame someone else for everything in our lives that isn't exactly the way we would want it to be.
In reality of course, running a country is an extremely difficult task in which is it clearly impossible to achieve ideal outcomes in eveything you do, not least because there are so many competing visions of what the ideal outcome should be.
We are by any objective measure one of the wealthiest, safest, fairest, most stable, least corrupt countries in the world as evidenced by the fact that a seemingly limitless number of people would like to get here, many risking everything they have including their lives to do so. The problem is we'd all like it to be wealthier, safer, fairer etc.... but really its our expectations of what politicians can achive that's unrealistic.