goes shooting on the 20,000-acre [Tarbert] estate [on the Scottish island of Jura], which is owned by his wife Samantha’s stepfather, Viscount Astor.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Cameron also pledged to introduce a Bill to repeal the Hunting Act, which bans hunting with dogs, if the Conservative Party wins the next general election.
Guardian columnist Roy Hattersley summed it all up nicely.
No wonder Cameron urged his followers to “hug a hoodie”. He clearly identifies with young men who wear distinctive clothes as the badge of their incipient violence. Like members of the Bullingdon Club, the youths in cheap sweatshirts are a product of their environment. Those who become ruffians usually spring from families that have too little. The men in the royal blue tailcoats became hooligans because they had too much. Think what would have happened to the yobs of the club if a malign fairy had stolen them from their cradles and exchanged them with infants from a south London council estate. They would have become part of the Asbo generation. Smashing up restaurants would have led to prison, not to parliament.
The most offensive aspect of Cameron’s Bullingdon years is that he and his cronies were bought out of trouble by their rich families. They flaunted the idea that people with money can get away with anything. In 1963, after Alec Douglas-Home had become prime minister, Harold Wilson expressed his surprise that “at a time when even the MCC had ended the distinction between professionals and amateurs, the Conservatives have chosen to be led by a gentleman rather than a player”. Now, in an age when all the political parties claim to believe – for good or ill – in meritocracy, the Tories have chosen to be led by a man who was propelled onwards and upwards by family money.
