Scandals involving such senior MPs as Zahawi highlight the shift in powerbrokering from landed gentry to financiers and businessmen
The old boys’ club. We don’t hear about it as much as we used to, do we? The phrase seems a little dusty, a bit of a throwback. Harrovians, Etonians, Wykehamists and other privately educated politicians may constitute 80% of Britain’s prime ministers so far; but they increasingly sit cheek by jowl in parliament with others who did not go to fee-paying schools, are not male, not white – and not only did not go to Oxbridge, but are not university educated at all.
And yet here we are, riffling through the seedy dealings of a small connected group of people at the top. The past few weeks of Conservative scandals are proof that this network is still alive and well. What these scandals also reveal is an evolution in the network’s character – high finance and mercantilism are becoming a fast track for new members into this particular political elite’s ranks.
Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist
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