Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, September 09, 2011

Verrry interesting...

So, David Cameron wants to blame organized gangs for the rioting in the UK. Could his allegations be based on personal experience? (Where is the Monty Python crew when we need it?)

Thanks to Alan Carter for pointing this one out.

Cameron struggles with the Bullingdon question

David Cameron was his usual assured self on this morning's Today programme until Evan Davis asked him the "Bullingdon question". Wasn't the infamous Oxford club (whose idea of a good night out was characterised by Evelyn Waugh as beating a fox to death with champagne bottles) just like the gangs that rioted? An audibly uncomfortable Cameron replied: "we all do stupid things when we're young - and we should learn the lessons."…

Photograph of the Bullingdon Club taken in 1987 at Brasenose College, Oxford. The Buller usually made its presence known by throwing exclusive yet rambunctious parties. [Alan Carter adds, "I was in Oxford at this time and the Bullingdon 'Club' was certainly active, the twist being that they always paid (often large sums in cash) for any property damaged."]
David Cameron is #2 above. Boris Johnson, Lord Mayor of London, is n#8.

But Cameron refused to accept that there was any comparison to be made between the behaviour of the club's members and the rioters. The riots, he said, were "very well organised", which rather invites the response: is disorganised violence acceptable?…

As Cameron said, we learn with age. Why then hand down the most draconian sentences possible? Cameron was in danger of appearing to suggest that it was one rule for the Oxford elite and another for the rest of the society…