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A Round of Applause for the Bullingdon Club

Some people may have been surprised when the Conservative party began hugging hoodies and jumping into bed with Polly Toynbee under the leadership of Old Etonian and rosy-cheeked toff, David Cameron. This being the man who reportedly refers to Margaret Thatcher as ‘Mother’. But anyone who knows anything about Keynesian economics can easily trace this lefty mentality back to the subconscious of Oxford’s infamously exclusive drinking society, the Bullingdon Club, of which David Cameron, Boris Johnson and, it was revealed last week, our shadow chancellor were members during their time here.

It was John Maynard Keynes who first suggested, to the horror of an ageing and confused Conservative party, that the way to pull 1930s Britain out of the depression was to pay people to dig holes and fill them back in again. Wasteful and apparently pointless, yes, but fantastic for easing unemployment. Ironically, the same could be said of the lavishly thuggish activities of our resident over-privileged twits. If you fancy joining the Bullingdon Club for the most expensive hangover of your life, the society’s uniform alone will cost you approximately £3,000 from Ede and Ravenscroft.

The idea is that one gets completely off one’s titties in a privately rented hall somewhere before trashing the place and leaving the owner with a large cheque to cover the cost of repairs. All this is done, of course, with a charming nudge-and-a-wink-and-we’ll-slip-you-a-fiver-later to the establishment. This, of course, sets one clearly apart from the vulgarities of the proletariat youth and their favoured straightforward fingers-up at authority.

No doubt unwittingly, the consequence of this highly exclusive drinking game is the creation of jobs for local cleaners, glass-fitters, builders and so on who understand what money is worth. So I do believe a round of applause is in order for these unsuspecting do-gooders. In today’s credit-crunched times, their twisted and entirely unintentional brand of wealth redistribution is just what the doctor ordered. Mother would not approve.

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