Status Anxiety

28 March 2009

Our reaction to Jade’s death shows that we are ready to elect an Old Etonian as PM

Yet, 12 years on, the class-based discrepancy in people’s reactions to the death of a young woman (also the mother of two boys) has all but disappeared. Over the past six weeks, as I made my usual rounds of book launches, dinner parties and so forth, I was constantly struck by how little snobbery I encountered in people’s attitudes to Jade’s illness. On the contrary, nearly everyone I met was genuinely sympathetic. In this respect at least, Britain in 2009 seems like a classless society.

The corollary of this, of course, is that Britain appears ready to handle an Old Etonian prime minister for the first time since 1964. The decontamination of that particular brand — the fact that having been to Eton is no longer considered an insurmountable obstacle in British politics — is another remarkable phenomenon of the last ten years. Just as members of David Cameron’s class no longer consider the underprivileged background of someone like Jade to be a reason to withhold their sympathy, so members of Jade’s class no longer consider the overprivileged background of someone like Dave to be a reason to withhold their votes. Indeed, Jade herself maintained that the reason she sold her story was so her sons could be privately educated. The politics of envy have been replaced by the politics of aspiration.

Forget Northern Ireland. The dissipation of class differences is the true legacy of Tony Blair. God knows he had his shortcomings, but when Blair left office Britain was a nation more at ease with itself than it was ten years earlier. With the exception of the hunting ban, the most significant thing about New Labour was the cessation of class hostilities that accompanied its arrival in power. This was signalled by the granting of independence to the Bank of England, followed by Tony and Gordon’s unceasing courtship of the City — a policy now regarded as disastrous from an economic point of view, but which undoubtedly paid dividends socially. The fact that Blair had been educated at one of Britain’s best public schools, and defended the right of parents to educate their own children privately, helped to break down the association in the public’s mind between toffs and public schools. Post-Blair, even Jade Goody could embrace private education without jeopardising her status as a working-class hero.

The irony is that Blair has paved the way for what John Prescott calls ‘the Eton mob’. Now that we live in a less class-conscious nation, being a member of the old-fashioned ruling class is not considered a barrier to high office. As we shed a tear for Jade Goody, we should bear in mind that she and David Cameron are two sides of the same coin.

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Jennifer Rhee

March 26th, 2009 1:07pm Report this comment

How undignified to publicly parade your death to the media. The fear of death led to these actions...although selling the story and staging a media circus will give her boys a better education.

I am American and live in a less class concious society that is moving towards a more meritocracy. However I still believe she should have gone more quietly. A reality TV star who's death got more coverage than Natasha Richardson?? What is this world coming to? Shame on you JG.

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