To be outraged that Boris Johnson has the unmitigated gall to talk about anyone else..

[seeker]

...having an excessive sense of entitlement?

They don't grab them Bonsoir. What a ridiculous thing to say. You don't get handed a degree or a sucessful career just by being upper class. There are PLENTY of bankers and politicians from working / middle class back grounds too.

Why are people who live their lives right, work hard to be able to provide for their families, the ones in the wrong, whereas the ones who have children while in poverty are the ones who deserve sympathy?

Banking is one of the most purely meritocratic industries there is. If you can make more money for the bank than the other candidate, you will get the job, regardless of what your background is. A stark contrast to the more lefty professions where nepotism is absolutely rife.

No - the riots were not a revolt - but apologists are making excuses for these criminals by trying to attach deeper reasons for their actions - reasons such as 'poverty' 'no opportunities' 'no sense of belonging' - all these factors are inherent in revolts - what we witnessed were mindless criminals on the make,
Although I do believe we need to invest more in our deprived inner city areas and spend less on wars and overseas aid - charity begins at home and we clearly have massive social problems which need addressing immediately.

Criminals are in the wrong whatever class they are - upper or lower. The looting was wrong. The fact that the MPs / Bankers were wrong doesnt make it right or excuse it.

The looters were not all on benefits or working class - there were students, there were people with good jobs.

It wasn't political - it was pure greed and criminality. They didn't attack politcal targets - they attacked small businesses in their own communities and businesses selling commerically attractive goods.

Boris had a priveledged background. Of course it makes life easier - but he still gets to have an opinion on the behaviour of others.

I don't think the looting was right; I have sympathy for those who did it. They were expressing powerlessness.

No, they were expressing greed.
That's why they mostly looted shops for electronic goods and sportswear.

Do you really think that Bonsoir? I don't think they were expressing anything but greed and stupidity but there you go

Not round these parts they werent. Two days late and arranged by local criminals - not a real expression of powerless imo

looked like opportunistic thieving
and chance to blag a bike,big telly and some bling trainers
robbing footlocker hardly strikes at core of establishment or institutions.

catgirl - agree with you
i've heard someone characterizing this so-called rioting as "extreme" shopping... as there was nothing political or nationalistic or akin to social protest in their behaviour. people who thought that police weakness and their strength in numbers would shield them from the punishment for their vile actions.

Please can we get over this public school thing. Boris Johnson went to an independent school. So did Ed Balls and Alastair Darling. Tony Blair too.Until 2005 there were two OE Labour MPs as far left as you'd find them.

The editor of the Daily Mirror went to a public school, his class warry political editor Kevin Maguire didn't, but is married to a public school girl who once wrote that she threatened to divorce him rather than send her youngest son to a state school. The editor of the Guardian went to an independent school. Don't know about the present editor of the Observer but the last one did. Same again for the Indy and the New Statesman. The political editor of NS is a product of no less a school than Merchant Taylor's. The owner of that magazine has four kids at an independent school in London. Dianne Abbott chooses to send her son to an independent school too.

The editor of the New Left Review Perry Anderson went to Eton. Polly Toynbee? Badminton School. Laurie Penny? Brighton College. Jonathan Freedland? UCS. George Monbiot? Stowe FFS.

Going back a bit further, you know Joe Strummer of the Clash? Product of a £26k+ independent school. Tony Benn? Westminster. Clement Attlee? Haileybury. Hugh Gaitskell? Winchester. Michael Foot? Leighton Park. I've already gone on far too long but one last dig. Of the eight Labour Chancellors since the war five were public school boys: an Old Etonian, two old Wykehamists, an old Fettesian and one from a minor independent school.

Where your parents sent you to school doesn't dictate your politics. In fact, the most vicious right wingers Britain has seen weren't from Eton or Stowe, they were Grammar school boys and girls like Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbitt. Some of Britain's most ardent socialists were public school boys. Stop obsessing over school ties.

Oohh Bonnielassie that's a scary phrase 'people who live their lives right'

bonsoir - are you for real?

The law students who have been up in court for looting were expressing "powerlessness?". How about the millionaires daughter?

I only know two people in banking - both very senior within their organisations, both on £1million plus - both working class, comprehensive educated

i am sure if i lived on a run down council estate funding was being cut so i was unable to go to the clubs that i did, that my parents found it hard to get out of the trap of poverty and my school did not seem to take my education that serioulsy, the teachers mainly supply teachers and knowing if i was born into a different family lived a few streets away, i would have a very different life and be treated differently by society and not expected to turn out a loser i too may have a sense of entitlement to be treated as well and with as much respect as any other person my age

the press are so shocked that some of the looters have been privately educated come from nice middle class homes says it all to me adn we are screaming how can this happen but if they are from a broken home and live in a council estate we jsut want to punish them and say well what do you expect

Christ, there are a lot of straw man arguments going on here!

Schomberg, had any one of those people in your post talked about the poorest people having an excessive sense of entitlement, then they too would be massive fucking hypocrites.

Honestly, people are having the argument they want to have- the OP was about one comment made by a man in a particularly privileged position. It was not about how people who went to Eton should not be in charge- it was about how them saying something like this make them hypocritical; which it clearly does.

Why are we talking about bankers?

We are talking about bankers as bonsoir said that bankers had behaved wrongly as if this somehow gave a legitiamcy to the looting

Also

Boris did not refer to "the poorest people" or "people on benefits" as having an excessive sense of entitlement.

He refered to the LOOTERS as having an excessive sense of entitlement. Given we all know all the looters were not poor or on benefits he was bloody right. His background does not change that fact.

But tethersend - I want to streer the conversation away from
Boris Johnson and onto hypocritical left-wingers - I think that's my right and I make no apology for my sense of entitlement -

Huh

This thread is ridiculous.

MN leaves a nasty, bitter taste in my mouth sometimes.

We were buffooned by Boris on Friday (Croydon).

He was there for the re-opening of the Tramlink, did a photo-op with Mr Reeves and went on a walkabout round west Croydon. Everywhere I fecking went, Boris-bloody-Johnson was.

FWIW, he's held in universal derision here. The locals were more interested in papping him, just 'cos he's a sleb. The few who engaged with him were haranguing him about police cuts. One woman ran over to see what all the fuss was about, saw him, said "ach, it's just Boris", spat and walked off. Pretty much sums it up.