RICH PUNKS IN TUXES

Eton boys

Don't you sometimes wonder about the toffs who run our countries? What they were like as young men perhaps? During their school years? A few years ago I ran across the top photo here but recognized no one. 

At the time, all I thought was, “What an arrogant group of spoiled blighters these are.” 

Today I stumbled across that same photo, tagged. It is part of an article on David Cameron and claims that these controversial photographs might have been responsible for Cameron’s showing in the 2010 elections. 

You be the judge. 

Certainly they acted to removed these photos from public access, but … hey, this is the internet. The boat left the harbour years ago.

THE BULLINGDON CLUB

I don’t usually made political predictions, but if there is one reason David Cameron might lose the General Election, it is the photo below ~ a picture taken in 1987 at Brasenose College, Oxford which Cameron attended. Although the Labour party accused him of being a member of a secret society, the Bullingdon Club, is far from a secret society.

Immortalized as the Bollinger Club by Evelyn Waugh, the Buller usually makes its presence known by throwing exclusive yet rambunctious parties.

ED: These King Scholars and Old Etonians are members of the highly secretive and elitist Oxford dining society, the Bullingdon Club. Its modus operandi to this day is to book a private dining room under an assumed name, then physically destroy it. Very large amounts of cash are then offered to the upset owners to pay them off for the destruction ~ a Buller tradition which dates back to Victorian times.

Above,

(1) The Hon. Edward Sebastian Grigg, the heir to Baron Altrincham of Tormarton and current chairman of Credit Suisse (UK)

(2) David Cameron

(3) Ralph Perry Robinson, a former child actor, designer, furniture-maker

(4) Ewen Fergusson, son of the British ambassador to France, Sir Ewen Fergusson and now at City law firm Herbert Smith

(5) Matthew Benson, the heir to the Earldom of Wemyss and March

(6) Sebastian James, the son of Lord Northbourne, a major landowner in Kent

(7) Jonathan Ford, the-then president of the club, a banker with Morgan Grenfell

(8) Boris Johnson, the-then president of the Oxford Union, now Lord Mayor of London

(9) Harry Eastwood, the investment fund consultant

In the above photo, taken in 1992, there are eight famous faces:

(1) George Osborne, now the Shadow Chancellor;

(2) Writer Harry Mount, the heir to the Baronetcy of Wasing and Mr. Cameron’s cousin;

(3) Chris Coleridge, the descendant of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the son of Lloyds’ chairman David Coleridge, the brother of Conde Nast managing director Nicholas Coleridge

(4) German aristocrat and managing consultant Baron Lupus von Maltzahn,

(5) The late Mark Petre, the heir to the Barony of Petre;

(6) Australian millionaire Peter Holmes a Cour;

(7) Nat Rothschild, the heir to the Barons Rothschilds and co-founder of a racy student paper with Harry Mount

(8) Jason Gissing, the chairman of Ocado supermarkets.

Two figures on left of (6) and (7) were blacked out before the photo was released, causing wild allegations. Their identities are yet unknown. My top contenders (based on the influence in the City, the Athenaeum and their Oxford prominence) include:

(1) The Hon. Michael Gove, Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, former president of the Oxford Union and “one-man think-tank”

(2) The Hon. Adam Bruce, the son of the Earl of Elgin and incumbent Unicorn Pursuivant of Arms

(3) The Hon. Edward Vaizey, the son of Lord Vaizey and the Shadow Minister for Culture

(4) The founder of Think Tank Policy Exchange, and conservative activist Nicholas Boles

(5) Steven Hilton, the director of strategy for Cameron and godfather of Cameron’s children