Boris Johnson is another example why we must break this cycle of privilege

As the snow flies

On a cold and grey New York morning a rich little baby boy is born

To the Johnsons

To the Johnsons

And a nation cries

Cause if there’s one thing that it don’t need

It’s another offspring from the seed

Of the Johnsons

Of the Johnsons

People don’t you understand

The child will get every helping hand

And he’ll grow up to be a privileged young man

Take a look at you and me

Are we too blind to see

Do we simply turn our heads and look the other way.

Well, the world turns

And a privileged little boy with a silver spoon.

Goes to kindergarten and Eton school

Like a Johnson

Like a Johnson

Then one night in entitled expectation the young man makes his play.

He blags a safe seat like his Da.

Runs for PM and he goes far

And the nation cries.

As a crowd gathers round a privileged young man

At Ten Downing Street with the keys in his hand.

Boris Johnson.

Boris Johnson

And as the young man falls.

On a cold and grey London morning

Another little baby child is born

To the Johnsons

And a nation cries.

The cycle of intergenerational poverty is not the only chain that needs to be broken.

In the last week we have seen the result of entitlement, passed through generations and fostered in the classrooms and playing fields of elite public schools.

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A man who thinks he can do as he pleases, which in turn leads to his staff thinking the same, while others must simply obey.

Boris Johnson was born into privilege. His son, last year was born into privilege, and his new baby daughter was born, just this week, into privilege.

There was nothing in the genes of little baby Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson when he was born in New York in 1964, that made him more likely to become Prime Minister than there was in the genes of any of the baby boys born in Rottenrow Hospital that year.

But in the years that followed, the odds narrow hugely for one and widen enormously for the others.

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Nothing has changed in the 57 years since, to make it any different today.

The same twisted societal rules apply to baby Johnson, born this week, and babies born in the Princes Royal Maternity that will see their life chances follow greatly divergent paths.

The only disadvantage the new Johnson may face is her sex. Posh boys will in general be pushed further than posh girls.

For centuries, the upper classes believe they have a right to govern and many in the general population believe this to be true.

How else can we explain Boris Johnson, Prime Minister?

Given his record before, his behaviour, demeanour and contempt for others to get his own way, had he been the product of, for example, Eastbank Academy and not Eton there’s a good chance Johnson would have been in jail and not Downing Street.

How many Prime Ministers, Chancellors, have come through the gates of Eton, Harrow and other ‘top’ public schools.

Well it’s 20 from Eton alone.

High court judges, Governors of the bank of England, Chief Executives of multi-national firms and national newspaper editors, in all of these posts elite private school and Oxford and Cambridge graduates are over represented.

They are not the ‘best schools’. That is not why parents send their children there.

You are as likely to get a good, inspirational teacher in a state school in Glasgow, for example Eastbank academy, as you are at Eton. Some would say more likely.

What the parents are paying their £45k a year for is access to a vehicle that perpetuates the privilege that elevates people from these backgrounds to positions of power and influence.

And it has been allowed to go on for so long that it is accepted.

It is accepted to the extent that these schools get subsidies from the state in the form of tax relief because they are registered as a charity.

So the next generation of men like Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, David Cameron, George Osborne, and many others in the old Etonian elite, are being educated by an institution whose tax bill from income is a fraction of what it should be.

The first step to ending this absurd system of upper class domination, which is to the detriment of absolutely everyone else in the country, can be to end the charitable status, or remove the tax relief, which for other genuine charities is a necessity but for colleges like Eton is perk a loophole to be exploited.

Maybe then when Boris and Carrie Johnson have a child we could all happily wish them good luck. Because right now luck is one thing it does not need.