According to Sinead O'Connor, 'People liked Diana because she admitted that she'd slashed herself and made herself puke, that she was just as fucked up as us. The monarchy should set an example for us, it should not try to emulate us. According to Sewell the idea that the monarchy should be more like other people is 'horrific'. But I', says Sewell, 'am starting a campaign for the revival of respect for the word elite. If you have an elite standard for people to aspire to, then everything gets better.
People criticise public schools in the same way they criticise the monarchy.
The way to kill off public schools is to make every comprehensive as good as them. There will then be no demand for public schools, except from the idiot sons of the aristocracy who are uneducatable anyway. Everything else will be as good as Eton and Harrow. The problem with the monarchy is not that it is too extravagant, but that it is a barrier to democracy Of course we can all laugh at Sewell's outdated snobbery, but his defence of the idea that people can improve themselves makes a refreshing change from listening to Blairites telling us we have become a nation of compulsive losers. Personally I could not care less whether the Queen appears on daytime television to talk about thrush or sails around the world in a luxury yacht.