Ellie Mae O’Hagan goes full authoritarian in The Guardian‘s ‘Utopian Thinking’ column today, proposing a “restriction on the number of privately educated people in Britain’s elite”:
“In journalism, things are going backwards, with more journalists now coming from private schools than in 1987… let’s introduce quotas. If 7% of the population goes to private school, then it seems only fair that 7% of Britain’s elite jobs should go to privately educated individuals. This would include chief executives, barristers, journalists, judges, medical professionals and MPs.“
Putting aside the moral and practical objections, let’s indulge for a moment in the breathtaking hypocrisy of Ellie’s ‘utopia’. If she had her way, the vast majority of her own newsroom would either be sacked or never have been employed. Privately educated senior Guardianistas, answer the register after your name is called…
Perhaps for her next piece Ellie Mae can tell us which of her colleagues she thinks deserves the chop on the basis of their background…
There are undoubtedly plenty more privileged Guardianistas (let Guido know via the comments). O’Hagan’s own privately educated VICE columnist boyfriend* Sam Kriss (University College School) would also surely be out of a job. Actually, maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all…
N.B. Presumably 93% of Ellie’s other boyfriends were state educated. Incidentally, 0% of the Guido Fawkes newsroom were privately educated.
As a sign of the ever-widening Corbynista detachment from reality, Jezza’s activist/journalist supporters are spreading the meme that he is in fact the Prime Minister. Guardian writer Abi Wilkinson says:
Abi’s mate Sam Kriss, the Vice journalist slash nutty far-left conspiracy theorist, reckons:
Liam Young, the New Statesman and Independent blogger and original Jez fanboy-cum-student-activist-journalist, thinks Corbyn is “certainly in power”:
Perhaps most hilariously of all, Red Pepper, the hard-left Corbyn supporting magazine, says Jez is the “People’s Prime Minister”:
Guys, Corbyn lost. By a distance. He came 64 seats short of winning. You know how Theresa May has just held a government reshuffle with appointments approved by the Queen? It’s because she is the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister who forms a government after an election is by definition the “People’s Prime Minister”. That is how it works. More people voted for the Conservative Party than the Labour Party. Jezza’s fanboys and fangirls are living in an alternate reality…
This is not the moment for conspiracy theories… people must stay calm and united – Shami Chakrabarti tells #newsnight pic.twitter.com/T0L8CfiUJa
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) May 23, 2017
Twitter and Facebook are full of hundreds of crackers Corbynistas claiming the JTAC decision to raise the threat level is part of some conspiracy to hurt Jez’s election chances. Here is Sam Kriss, a prominent pro-Corbyn journalist for Vice:
i’m sure absolutely no political calculation went into the decision to put Strong Decisive Army Men on the streets weeks before the election
— Sam 🐫 Kriss (@sam_kriss) May 23, 2017
As anyone other than the tin foil hatters knows, the decision was made by JTAC not CCHQ. Shami Chakrabarti was forced to shut the nutters down on Newsnight…