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| Diary: you can help Eton in these cash-strapped times. Please give generously | |
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| • You don't have to have been to Eton or to have studied at one of the country's top fee-paying schools to work with PM Dave, but it seems to help. He picks people purely on merit, he said this week, responding to jibes that his is a very, very posh boys' club. Untrue. Etonians merely find a way to ensure their merits are recognised above those of everyone else. How do they do that? One suspects it might have something to do with the 1440 Society, the body that raises funds to ensure Eton retains its all-conquering perch in public life. No merit qualification here. Give them £1,440 every year for a minimum of five years and you're in. And what do you get in return? The knowledge that you helped develop the future masters of the universe, and the occasional social gathering with top-notch speakers. In July Jonathan (trusty sword of truth) Aitken will, perhaps, be comparing prison life with that at Eton. Gerald (my products are crap) Ratner is due in August, no doubt to highlight the importance of saying the right things at the right time. Lord Hurd, the former foreign secretary, does his bit in November. Hard times. Give generously. | • You don't have to have been to Eton or to have studied at one of the country's top fee-paying schools to work with PM Dave, but it seems to help. He picks people purely on merit, he said this week, responding to jibes that his is a very, very posh boys' club. Untrue. Etonians merely find a way to ensure their merits are recognised above those of everyone else. How do they do that? One suspects it might have something to do with the 1440 Society, the body that raises funds to ensure Eton retains its all-conquering perch in public life. No merit qualification here. Give them £1,440 every year for a minimum of five years and you're in. And what do you get in return? The knowledge that you helped develop the future masters of the universe, and the occasional social gathering with top-notch speakers. In July Jonathan (trusty sword of truth) Aitken will, perhaps, be comparing prison life with that at Eton. Gerald (my products are crap) Ratner is due in August, no doubt to highlight the importance of saying the right things at the right time. Lord Hurd, the former foreign secretary, does his bit in November. Hard times. Give generously. |
| • One esteemed past speaker at the 1440 was Viscount (Matt) Ridley, the celebrated writer and environmentalist who so distinguished himself as chair of Northern Rock. He comes from a line of those who've mastered the universe. He's an old Etonian, as was his father, the fourth Viscount Matthew Ridley. As was his uncle, Baron (Nicholas) Ridley, who maintained the philosophical lead in the Thatcherite pencil. But it is Matt's father and the presently contested principal of universality in social provision that interests us here. For our friend Illtyd Harrington, former deputy leader of the Greater London Council, recalls a meeting with the fourth viscount. Both men sat on a municipal insurance board. Ridley was, in addition, lord steward of the royal household. And Harrington, wearing his GLC hat, knew much about the travel concession for OAPs, the freedom pass. Ridley, he says, "hailed me in the street and said, 'Am I entitled to the freedom pass?'. I said yes. I even told him how to fill the form out. I said tell the Queen she is also entitled. Apparently, he did." She likes helicopters these days anyway. | • One esteemed past speaker at the 1440 was Viscount (Matt) Ridley, the celebrated writer and environmentalist who so distinguished himself as chair of Northern Rock. He comes from a line of those who've mastered the universe. He's an old Etonian, as was his father, the fourth Viscount Matthew Ridley. As was his uncle, Baron (Nicholas) Ridley, who maintained the philosophical lead in the Thatcherite pencil. But it is Matt's father and the presently contested principal of universality in social provision that interests us here. For our friend Illtyd Harrington, former deputy leader of the Greater London Council, recalls a meeting with the fourth viscount. Both men sat on a municipal insurance board. Ridley was, in addition, lord steward of the royal household. And Harrington, wearing his GLC hat, knew much about the travel concession for OAPs, the freedom pass. Ridley, he says, "hailed me in the street and said, 'Am I entitled to the freedom pass?'. I said yes. I even told him how to fill the form out. I said tell the Queen she is also entitled. Apparently, he did." She likes helicopters these days anyway. |
| • Shock horror in Tory ranks that the father of "rising star" and Essex woman Priti Patel MP stood in the local elections under the Ukip banner. Not the smoothest campaign. As we know, Sushil Patel tried to halt his candidacy when the embarrassing link became public knowledge, only to find that people had already voted for him, so it was too late. But why the surprise? Ambitious Patel Jr, a protege of Voldemort Lansley, herself skipped off from the Tories in the mid-90s to become press officer for squillionaire Jimmy Goldsmith's Referendum party. As Ukip's posher brother, its candidates did much harm to John Major in Tony Blair's 1997 landslide win. So she may have been cross with Dad. But she won't have been able to lecture him about loyalty. | • Shock horror in Tory ranks that the father of "rising star" and Essex woman Priti Patel MP stood in the local elections under the Ukip banner. Not the smoothest campaign. As we know, Sushil Patel tried to halt his candidacy when the embarrassing link became public knowledge, only to find that people had already voted for him, so it was too late. But why the surprise? Ambitious Patel Jr, a protege of Voldemort Lansley, herself skipped off from the Tories in the mid-90s to become press officer for squillionaire Jimmy Goldsmith's Referendum party. As Ukip's posher brother, its candidates did much harm to John Major in Tony Blair's 1997 landslide win. So she may have been cross with Dad. But she won't have been able to lecture him about loyalty. |
| • With the contenders in South Shields hopefully brushing up that maiden speech, one wonders how much we will be seeing in the future of the previous MP, David Miliband. He's off to New York, as head of International Rescue Committee, but he'll be back in June to burn brightly at the FT-Telfónica Millenials Summit in London. How to keep track of him? His listing on the London Speaker Bureau, perhaps. | • With the contenders in South Shields hopefully brushing up that maiden speech, one wonders how much we will be seeing in the future of the previous MP, David Miliband. He's off to New York, as head of International Rescue Committee, but he'll be back in June to burn brightly at the FT-Telfónica Millenials Summit in London. How to keep track of him? His listing on the London Speaker Bureau, perhaps. |
| • Finally, as managers denounce turgid management-speak, FT journo turned ethical PR guru Tim Burt gives a vocab primer to foreign hacks at the Reuters Institute in Oxford. Starter for 10, what is astroturfing? Is it employed on a "dark site crisis website" and is it ever used with "dirty PR"? Well, in astroturfing, one creates fake Twitter activity and such like to show grassroots support for a just or unjust cause. The prudent planner, meanwhile, has a "dark site" ready to get up and running and pumping out messages in case the odure hits the fan, as it has with so many banks, land despoilers, nicotine traders etc. And "dirty PR" is bought by beastly companies or governments with glaring human rights deficiencies. Dirty work, but at the fees involved, someone's always happy to oblige. Twitter: @hugh_muir | • Finally, as managers denounce turgid management-speak, FT journo turned ethical PR guru Tim Burt gives a vocab primer to foreign hacks at the Reuters Institute in Oxford. Starter for 10, what is astroturfing? Is it employed on a "dark site crisis website" and is it ever used with "dirty PR"? Well, in astroturfing, one creates fake Twitter activity and such like to show grassroots support for a just or unjust cause. The prudent planner, meanwhile, has a "dark site" ready to get up and running and pumping out messages in case the odure hits the fan, as it has with so many banks, land despoilers, nicotine traders etc. And "dirty PR" is bought by beastly companies or governments with glaring human rights deficiencies. Dirty work, but at the fees involved, someone's always happy to oblige. Twitter: @hugh_muir |
| • This article was amended on 3 May 2013. The original referred to the Referendum party as Ukip's posher older brother. Ukip, however was founded a year earlier than Referendum. This has been corrected. The photograph originally illustrating the article was replaced, as it depicted Harrovian, not Etonian students |