Kuper: “Boris Johnson and his Oxford friends thought they were living in the England of ‘Brideshead Returns'”

Parties, debates with all the pomposity, hollow but agile rhetoric, sharp verb towards the most modest students, irony and sarcasm in abundance, alcohol without tax…Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Cameron, Theresa May, Dominic Cummings, Jacob Rees-Mogg, George Osborne, o Daniel Hannan, they have many things in common. They studied at the University of Oxford, they are conservative, they were euroskeptics and then supporters of Brexit, they played with fire, they wanted to star in a particular epic and they are all part of an elite that only the United Kingdom could generate, in fact the Little England. The South African-British writer Simon Kuperwho also studied at Oxford, has portrayed them in Friend-cracy (Captain Swing), with an illustrative subtitle: how a small breed of Oxford Tories took over the UK.

Kuper, in an interview with Global Fontis clear that, despite the efforts now of the prime minister Rishi Sunakno favorable winds blow for the friends of Johnson y Cameronnow recovered as Foreign Minister: “The conservatives in the United Kingdom will lose the elections and will bet on a Trumpist version, due to a populist drift.” But what moved them in the eighties, when they were studying at Oxford? “Boris Johnson and Cameron thought, with all their Oxford friends, that they lived in the England of ‘Brideshead Returns'”says Kuper, in reference to the novel by Evelyn Waughwhich had just been adapted to television, with a hugely successful series, starring Jeremy Irons.

Kuper assures that he usually fails in his predictions, but that this time the British population has understood that the Conservatives deserve to be in the opposition for a while. The Conservatives’ management of Brexit and the Covid pandemic have left conservative voters themselves in a situation of enormous perplexity, according to Kuper, who understands that the Conservative Party “will suffer a major internal crisis”taking into account that it is now “more than twenty points away from the Labor Party.”

Kuper’s book leaves the Spanish reader with his eyes open. Can studying at Oxford be a hobbyas seen in Waugh’s novel, a privileged place for ‘gentlemen’? The author of Friend-cracy is explained. He himself studied at that university. “It is not a bad university at all. The thing is that there are several Oxfords. There are serious students who work, but it was not mandatory to do so in the eighties. You didn’t need it, as was the case with Johnson. The important thing was to speak, write essays. The art of writing and oratory were appreciated. You had to defend those essays before the tutor or professor, and at 19 years old he spoke without much knowledge. But talking, although without great depth about the topics, was and is also important for adult life. For Boris Johnson it was about saving the situation, and that was very Oxford.”

In the book, Simon Kuper points out a vital observation, which differentiates the United Kingdom from the rest of European countries and which is the basis of universities such as Oxford or Cambridge. He considers that the British elite has always been aware of the talent of the middle class, or the upper-middle class in order to integrate it into the elite, and, in this way, ensure dominance. “One of the functions of Oxford was to select these outsiders and initiate them into the lifestyle of the ruling class; with service personnel at your disposal included. On the European continent, the rise of the middle class implies the decapitation of the aristocracy. Instead, in England, the middle classes can ‘acquire the attitudes and language inflections of the upper classes through a gentlemanly education,’ he writes. A.N.Wilson in The Victorians. So “The system expands the human capital of the British elite while neutralizing potential revolutionary leaders.”.

For Kuper that is the key, although the situation has changed. “When there are talented, valuable people, they are sought after, as happened with Thatcher. You can enter the elite, we train you, you will know how to behave, and you will be part of that elite. Now there is a greater mix, but that idea has always been present, because there have also always been ambitious people.”

Is it good for the country itself, for the United Kingdom, that these universities exist? Kuper responds that the benefit is for that upper class, which continues to maintain a privileged space, but it is not so much for the country. “Having elite universities can be a weakness for a country, because the message that is offered to 99% of the population is that you have not been able to belong to that club. “Oxford is a productive and creative university and we have seen that with the Covid vaccines, but for the UK it can be a negative thing.”

What Kuper exposes in the book is that for various reasons a series of young people toyed with the possibility of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. One of them was Boris Johnson himself. With a humanistic training, where knowing Latin and Greek was much more valuable and important than any science career, the ‘gentlemen’ of Oxford reproduced the Westminster debates in the Oxford Union, the university’s debating society. With all the luxuries available, topics are prepared and defended, and followers are sought for the cause, the “puppets,” according to Johnson, co-opted among the students. There was a feeling of nostalgia, of playing at being the country that was, also the desire to star in a certain epic, in a city like Oxford “where nothing has happened in 400 years, without suffering any trauma”. And it was broadcast on television in the eighties Return to Bridesheadthe story that Evelyn Waugh wrote about a lost ‘little gentleman’, and a student with the desire to succeed, played by Jeremy Irons.

“You might think I was out of time, but Johnson and Cameron and all their friends thought they lived in that time, that were in ‘Brideshead Revisited’, and, really, Oxford in the eighties was a bit like that, it had not changed that much,” says Kuper. “That” was equivalent to strawberries with cream and champagne, getting lost in the rooms of enormous manor houses, wandering the streets, and dreaming of good financial allowances from families. “For Boris Johnson that world was not so far away, It was a myth for many people, but not for them.. You have to think that Johnson’s best friend was Charles Spencer, the brother of the Princess of Wales.”.

Now the country is very different and it is also so after Brexit, which has worsened the economic situation of the United Kingdom. The country is falling into “pieces”, as has been written in the Spanish press. Kuper understands that this statement may be “a little exaggerated,” but admits that “literally” some buildings have become dangerous because “they fall apart.” “The country is poorer than it was fifteen years ago, there is a population that needs food banks, Public services have worsened, so have trains and it is not easy to be optimistic. Countries like Ireland or Poland are growing and are optimistic about the future. This is not the case in the United Kingdom.”

But how did the whole of a country support Brexit, when it had been the elite that had played with that idea, since Oxford, almost as a diversion? “There are many factors. The working class opted for Brexit over immigration, with a very contrary feeling in 2016and because It was said that there would be more money for the health service. The idea of ​​nostalgia, of lost glory, that was a game, yes, and it had an influence, but there were different causes. And then Brexit was more successful outside the big cities and urban centers.”

The historian and journalist Timothy Garton Ash – as explained here in Letra Global – defends that the United Kingdom will gradually approach the European Union, and that the inclusion of Cameron as Foreign Minister may be a test – He made Brexit possible with the referendum, as prime minister. Kuper takes it more calmly: “It will take at least ten years to start speaking it.”. And we cannot rule out that France or another country could block a new entry from the United Kingdom, as happened in the 1960s. A great consensus will be required between the two major parties, because it will not be possible to ensure that whoever wins the elections can propose a new exit referendum. It will be a long process, although it is true that the population is now in favor, and there is a very intense movement in favor of it, perhaps as intense as that experienced in Ukraine in favor of being part of the EU.”

Kuper understands that there has been a “very healthy” reaction among the conservatives’ own electorate. The excesses of Johnson, the clumsiness of David Cameron, and of the entire party, including Sunak, will have a high cost: “I am usually wrong with my forecasts, but looking at the polls, with the conservatives more than twenty points below Labor makes it clear that they will lose the elections. Society is not as polarized as in other countries. The BBC remains a respected news institution. And the conservatives will be in the opposition, where I believe they will take a Trumpist path, with their own version of Trumpism, with important internal conflicts.”

Simon Kuper is clear that the United Kingdom defends a model that is neither necessary nor has good results. He compares the model of universities in the Netherlands, Germany or the Scandinavian countries, without elite universities, and believes that they are fairer countries and that they better ensure social advancement.

There are defenders of the United Kingdom, many, who raise an issue. Despite everything, there is that elite in the form of “public servants”, the ‘civil servants’, high officials, a body of State, which supports the country no matter what happens. Kuper disagrees.. He understands that this is part of the past. “Until Brexit you could say it was true. But there has been a populist movement that attacks these public servants, and also against Thursdays. They call them ‘deep state’, ‘Deep State’. And those state cadres they have felt fear. They find it difficult to say ‘no’ to politicians. “That was clear during Covid, with Johnson’s way of governing.”

However, the image, the perception, remains. “The United Kingdom projects that idea, a kind of myth, from the Beatles to Ed Sheeran, through Harry Potter or football. The Crown it’s the new one Return to Brideshead. There is a dream about the United Kingdom surviving, even though it is an economy a long way from China, for example. The cultural reference remains”.