The Establishment is fast losing its grip on the loyalty of the populace. That decline in the respect of the population for their masters has coincided with the rise of the importance of the internet and social media, and the corresponding decline in consumption of traditional print and broadcast news and current affairs media. It is a little more complicated than simple cause and effect – at precisely the same period the income gap in western society has opened out massively, and the palliative protections of the masses, particularly trade unions, have been rendered impotent. But the overall impact is that respect of the people for their “betters” is vanishing. Indeed, very few people would accept anybody in the political class as their “better” today.

There have been a number of Establishment reactions to this development. One is the cry of “Fake News” and desire to find excuses for censoring the internet and re-establishing control of the narrative. The “Fake News” alarm is perhaps too transparent a device to work in this respect, but they will keep mining away at the national security/paedophilia/terrorism excuses for ending this period of unprecedented freedom in mass communication.

Another device continuously deployed is for wealthy and/or powerful members of the Establishment to use identity politics to claim that they are themselves under attack. Hillary Clinton’s defeat is continually explained by her acolytes as due to “misogyny”. We had the entirely faked up story that the anger at Laura Kuenssberg for being blatantly anti-Corbyn was also misogyny. There is not a single Blairite female Labour MP who has not repeatedly claimed that political opposition from the left is conditioned by her gender.

Now we have a new meme, where MPs are complaining that their children are being verbally attacked at school. Now it is very wrong that any child is ever bullied or made unhappy. If Bob Stewart was telling the truth of his child facing adverse comment from a teacher, that is bad. But life is not without its troubles, even for children. I suffered some veiled taunts from one particular teacher about the fact my father was absent from the home. When I was going through my very high profile dispute with the Foreign Office, people said things to my children. Stuff happens – I don’t want any child to be unhappy, but MPs’ children have pretty charmed lives and manage to do often “surprisingly” well at getting their first job.

Today we have Hanna Flint in the Guardian apparently traumatised by a teacher asking her when she was 13 if her mum, Caroline Flint, would vote for the war in Iraq. Again I am sorry if that upset Hanna. No child should be upset. But there are hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children a very great deal more traumatised by having close family members blown to pieces in the Iraq conflict, thanks to the hardened and nasty right wing piece of work that is Caroline Flint. I imagine their trauma is rather worse. There are plenty of Iraqi children who got maimed themselves. There are plenty of Iraqi children who, unlike Hanna, never got the chance to grow up at all, thanks to Hanna’s warmongering mum. I am sorry for your childhood pain, Hanna, I really am. I hate to see any child unhappy. But forgive me if you are not first in line for my sympathy.

Remember, if your mum was not a Blairite MP, a young journalist as bland as you would be most unlikely to get an article published in the Guardian. See, its not all that bad. being in the Establishment.

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