How to win the class war

The key to successful class rule is that to its subjects it feels effortless, painless and natural. So ideally then it should be conducted by charming and charismatic people, something Stewart Lee's recent routine about him and David Cameron at Oxford University* captures beautifully. Unfortunately, every so often some upper/ruling class numpty comes along and gives the game away.

And so it was with Dr Heather McGregor. I'd never heard of her before, but if you go here you'll hear her trying to defend the thousand-thousand percent increase in executive pay as exposed by the High Pay Commission. For McGregor the argument is something like having staff sit as pension trustees equals worker representation and anyway if you wanted a workers' co-operative you should go to Cuba. So that'll be artifically imposing a false dichotomy then to distract from what most people want, which is (a) not to have the pish ripped and (b) some real linkages made between performance and reward.

If you go here though, you realise Dr McGregor is (a) upper class and (b) a fucktard whose given the game away.

"Here" refers to the speech she gave to Rodean school in 2009, Rodean being the female equivalent of the Eton school*, which she presumably attended and where and I quote - "She advised the girls, ‘Leave with this sentence tattooed on your head: “I can’t do it alone”. What is very important is to reach back and pull up the people behind you – and especially the people you were at school with’.

So that's alright then. Democracy? Meritocracy? Equality of opportunity? Fair play even? Nope, for this executive head hunter i.e. one of the people that helps identify the UK PLC CEOs that've been the getting muti-thousand percent pay rises, its old school ties and old school chums all the mutha-fuckin way. Bit of an own goal that.


* S'funny. Writing this I originally referred simply to Oxford, Rodean and Eton because those ruling class making machines are so engrained in our national pysche there's no need to state the type of institutions they "actually" are. Naturally.