THE sleaze and scandals at Westminster in recent years are the result of a “Bullingdon Club” mentality among the country’s elite who are willing to “ransack the nation” for their own good, according to a new book.
Journalist Sam Bright said a wave of recent political scandals are linked by UK’s leaders treating the country in a way which emulates the infamous Oxford dining society.
The male-only Bullingdon Club, which counts Boris Johnson, David Cameron and George Osborne among its past members, is only for the aristocracy and super-wealthy and has became notorious over reports of shocking behaviour such as trashing restaurants and allegations of burning a £50 note in front of a homeless person as an initiation ceremony.
In the book Bullingdon Club Britain: The Ransacking Of A Nation, one ex-member recounts how he decided to leave it after a fellow member “had emptied a jug of port, refilled it with his own piss and sent it back to the waitress, saying the port was ‘off’”.
Bright told the Sunday National: “The book is observing what has gone on over the past few years and trying to find a way of explaining it all in a way that encapsulates the cronyism, the political scandals, the Liz Truss phenomenon and everything that happened around the economy.
“There are lots of parallel events that have taken place in politics, none of which have benefited ordinary people and I think they are all very much interlinked.
“The idea that our leaders are treating the country in the same way the Bullingdon Club elites treat restaurants and the staff at these restaurants, I think rings quite true.”
In the book Bright writes: “A decade of grinding austerity and stagnant wages has been accompanied by the enrichment of political and corporate elites.
“In this way, the political, social and economic establishment of Britain is effectively acting as a private club for the privileged, dedicated to its own gluttony at the direct expense of ordinary people.
“Money and power are hoarded among this alliance of aristocrats, oligarchs and their butlers – and you’re not invited.”
Bright acknowledged there was an argument that a privileged elite has always run Britain, with around 35% of the country’s Prime Ministers coming from Eton.
But he added: “I think what has changed in recent years is our elites have lost the benevolence – we don’t have an elite that wants to foster social mobility or the success and opportunities of the lower classes “They have been able to ransack the country effectively in order to benefit themselves, in order to enhance their own status, ego and power and in many cases their financial opportunities as well.”
Bright said the change had been brought about by the rise to the top of politicians such as Donald Trump in the US and Boris Johnson and a lack of consequences over behaviour such as saying offensive or wrong statements.
“I think that is partly to do with the sheer amount of noise that we currently have and the extent and the frequency of these scandals,” he said, The awarding of billions of pounds of Covid contracts to Tory-linked firms is one glaring example of how the system operates for the privileged elite, with the ability for people to win lucrative work just because of who they know, Bright argued.
“A lot of the book is the investigative work I have done over the past few years and the biggest story I have worked on that shocked me was about the Covid contracts,” he said.
“I particularly worked on the PPE contracts and I was sceptical about the story when it first emerged.
“We saw one or two contracts going to companies owned by Tory donors and associates and I thought this must just be a coincidence, the government is spending so much money on these PPE deals that by the law of averages surely some of it must end up in the pockets of Tory donors.
“But then the contracts kept coming and the millions added up and then it ended up billions worth of contracts going to Tory donors.
“It was more than £3billion worth of Covid contracts that were awarded to firms owned by Conservative donors and those close to the Conservative Party.”
He added: “It was this privileged Bullingdon Club mentality where you can win hundreds of millions of pounds worth of contracts because of your links, which is fundamentally wrong and it goes to systemic problems with the nature of British aristocracy and nepotism and power which many people thought we had got rid of.”
Bright said one way in which the issue could be addressed was to devolve more power to nations and regions and away from London “The [Bullingdon] club is basically a private members club for graduates of three elitist private schools – Eton, on the outskirts of London, Westminster, in the heart of power, and Harrow in north-west London.
“So that kind of gives you a sense of how power lies in this country.”
