Britain's New Ruling Class

...Because of their personal histories, these men have a totally different conception of politics and of their responsibilities in office than eminent Conservatives have ever had before, the view from suburbia has replaced the vista from stately homes in the shires Besides abandoning the traditional Tory contempt for the middle class, they do not share the party's historic sense of obligation toward the lower classes They dismiss noblesse oblige as based on the assumption that the poor are not really as good as other people And remembering the struggle they went through to get where they are, they feel neither guilty about their success nor personally indebted to society In performing their duties, they envision themselves as managers assigned to do a job efficiently or make way for others who can...

...Norman Gelb, the NL's regular London correspondent, is the author of the recently published book, The British...

...Cabinet members who know from experience that a business has to find a market to be viable also are emotionally geared to accepting a large number of bankruptcies as the birth pangs of a high-technology orientation that they hope will lift the nation's economy out of its doldrums Many of the new ministers indeed, seem quite American in their pragmatism, their attempts to bring a classless perspective to governing a deeply class-stratified society, their determination to achieve their goals regardless of the price...

...EASING OUT THE ARISTOCRATS Britain's New Ruling Class BY NORMAN GELB London THE REAL revolution taking place in British politics has been overshadowed by the dramatic results of the June elections Still on everyone' s mind are the headlines telling of the landslide victory for Margaret Thatcher's Tones, the humiliating thrashing suffered by Michael Foot's Laborites, and the disappointment of the new third force, the Social Democratic-Liberal Alliance, at the fact that its relatively impressive 25 per cent share of the popular vote translated into no more than a comparative handful of Parliamentary seats...

...When British Socialists talk of the ruling class m the future, they will have an entirely different batch of enemies in mind...

...Now, however, Thatcher has filled the highest ranks of the Conservative Party and the government with men whose social credentials are less than exalted Not long ago, in fact, most of Britain's current ministers would have had a hard time gaining membership at London's exclusive gentlemen's clubs, and politically they might have found a more congenial home in the Labor movement Trade and Industry Minister Cecil Parkinson's father was a railway worker, Social Services Secretary Norman Fowler's a salesman Home Secretary Leon Brittan is the son of a doctor who came to England as a refugee from Lithuania when that country was threatened by the Nazis The father of Health Minister Kenneth Clarke was a miner who later became a watchmaker Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe (the knighthood is not inherited) is the offspring of a lawyer...

...Tory administrations have always been to a large extent the preserve of men born to great wealth-tided aristocrats and country gentry who generally entertained a measure of disdain for what they viewed as the crassness of middle class values and exertions The feelings of this upper crust for party members of bourgeois origin who managed through unignorable merit to work their way up near the top was most unabashedly expressed by the peer who once dismissed the late Conservative minister Ian McCloud as "too clever by half " Even the enlightened blue bloods-and there were many of them over the years-had quite a bit of difficulty shedding prejudices formed in public schools like Eton and Harrow (which have come to be dominated by the middle class only in the last few decades) They, too, tended to regard self-made men as pushy, impudent and unsavory...

...Of course, the voting had a profound effect that is already apparent, both defeated parties are gravely worried about their future as effective political forces Yet of greater historical consequence is a fundamental change that has become evident within the Tory organization itself For the Conservatives, while certainly true to their name in terms of the policies they continue to promote, have paradoxically achieved a radical goal pursued by the Labor Party since its formation around the turn of the century They have levered Britain's traditional ruling class out of power, albeit by other means than the Laborites would have liked to employ A glance at Prime Minister Thatcher's new Cabinet tells the story...

...All of this helps to explain the seeming tactlessness of controversial Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit, whose father, when not out of work altogether during the bad days of the '30s, managed a shop It is Tebbit's task to cope with the reality of mass unemployment in Britain today, and he finds it no strain or embarrassment to say the situation will probably get worse before it gets better He does not feel the need-as, for example, former Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan did-to put his sympathy with the jobless on record During the election campaign, in fact, he earned the hatred of many of them by suggesting they follow the example of his father When Tebbit Sr lost his job, the Secretary said, he simply "got on his bike" and went looking for another Since the unemployment level here continues to exceed 13 per cent, it is hardly surprising that this was considered a callous remark Nonetheless, Tebbit did not intend to come across as a hard nose, he only wished to speak man-to-man The implications of the Tory revolution are impossible to forecast A certain amount of "benign neglect" in problem areas is inevitable Men who know their families survived the pressures of being out of work before unemployment insurance existed are unlikely to be overwhelmed with concern because others are experiencing similar difficulties today with the help of a weekly dole Nor are people whose life stories constitute a tribute to free enterprise about to see any disgrace or iniquity in the upsurge of private medicine because of the inadequacies of the underfinanced National Health Service-although this is a clear measure of how seriously the idea of giving all Britons equal access to the best health care available has been undermined...

...Nonetheless, the process Thatcher has set in motion has made the aristocracy, as a class, more of an anachronism than it was previously...

...As for the blue bloods, many of them still have seats in the House of Lords, but few bother to attend, much less get seriously involved in Parliamentary business In any case, the upper chamber's powers are extremely limited Some aristocrats used to find niches in the upper reaches of the military services Generals these days, though, must have more sophisticated training than most scions of the titled families have been exposed to Businesses, on the other hand, continue to retain an earl or lord on their board of directors, it looks good on the stationery In addition, the nobility has held on to great patches of land throughout Britain, having found ways to avoid being wiped out b\ the taxes Labor governments imposed during the '70s...

...For the moment, nothing can block the implementation of Tory policies, which are largely determined by the Prime Minister's monetarist philosophy In Britain, the party in power holds far more complete control than in the U S With some unimportant exceptions, only the government can introduce legislation, and if the Opposition does occasionally offer a bill, it is virtually sure to lack the wherewithal to push it through Commons Laws passed in the British Parliament, moreover, cannot be overturned by any court monetarist philosophy In-a grocer's daughter herself-and her band of middle-class high achievers are in charge Whether they are up to the challenge facing them remains to be seen Britain has been floundering too long It needs new ideas, fresh impetus, the reconstituted Tory command will have to prove that the personnel shifts represent more than a cosmetic change...

...There were seven old Etonians in Thatcher's first Cabinet, only one remains-lord Hailsham, the 75-year-old Lord Chancellor Gone are the likes of Lord Privy Seal Sir Ian Gilmour, Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington, Leader of the House of Lords Lord Soames, and Francis Pym, who moved from Defense Secretary to Leader of the House of Commons before finally succeeding Lord Carrington at the Foreign Ministry after the Argentine attack on the Falklands Most of the new guard are graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, but they made their way to and through those schools on hard work and brains, rather than the privilege that often guaranteed the degrees of their well-born forerunners...