Old Etonians, Conservatives and Homosexuals

Cripes, I never thought that would be a blog-post title. Some quip about all good people being at least two of those is forming in my mind, but I shan't burden you with it just now. Perhaps I should also add Church of England to that list. Anyway, onwards, Horatio, as someone once upon a time may or may not have said.

I've just spotted a wonderful quote in last week's Spectator. Opening the review to a new play which opened recently in London's Soho Theatre, Tory Boyz, Lloyd Evans begins:

The Conservatives were once a party of proud Etonians and closet homosexuals; now they're a party of closet Etonians and proud homosexuals.

Which lead to me pondering awhile (as I am wont to do) why this might be so. We're all aware that homosexuality is, thankfully, more or less fully accepted in today's society, or at least so my boyfriend tells me. But why is having been educated at the nation's finest school seen as needing to be hidden from general knowledge as if it were some deviantly-transmitted sexual disease?

New Labour has achieved much in its 11-year reign of terror, erm, I mean power. Some of it isn't wholly bad. Indeed, to be fair to the old buggers for a moment, the increase in acceptability of homosexuality and the equal rights now inherent to those of us who are very close to our mothers can partly be laid at the feet of His Tonyness et al. However, some things, perhaps even most things, that they have achieved have been less than good.

Perhaps that which I find the most frustrating is the dumbing-down in education. Endless tractor-production style figures of ever-increasing pass rates wholly betray the fact the majority of the well-educated population are more than aware that a lot of Britain's youth simply aren't terribly bright. The reasons for this are manifold, and there are enough words spread around t'interweb already without my feeble mind contributing more.

The point I wanted to note was that, more and more, I'm noticing that some people are finding the need to apologise for being intelligent and well-educated and even for being in possession of some erudite social skills. Also, other commentators have noticed a tendency for some people to be proud at being less than cerebrally efficient. Think carefully how many times you have heard someone say "oh, I've never been any good with numbers" or "my spelling's always been bad", followed immediately with an unembarrased giggle, as if to say, "isn't it funny how dumb I am?". Lawks.

The recent successes in CERN at the launch of the Large Hadron Collider have brought mathematics and physics back to the forefront of what be termed "cool" again, though I fear the effect will be but transitory. But things like that, and Concorde, and the jet engine, and the telephone, television, railways and other wonderful inventions didn't come from people who were proud to be numerically inefficient or embarrased to have worked hard and gained a good education.

So come along, those of you who went to Eton, Harrow and Westminster; graduates of Oxford and Cambridge unite; Doctors of Philosophy grab your bonnets and promise me one thing. You're all going to come out of your closet, look the country in the eye, and tell them that you're proud to be who you are, that you're pleased with what you have done, and that you look forward to what you're hoping you'll achieve.

Being a friend of Dorothy is acceptable now. It's time to fight for the friends of Minerva and Athena.