Revealed! Torygraph Readers Really Do Think the Aristocracy Are Biologically Superior

I’ve blogged several times about the Social Darwinism that underlies much of Conservatism. They share the Nazis’ belief that the upper classes are biologically superior to the rest of us, and so deserve their dominance in society, the economy and politics. Going through an old copy of Private Eye from 22 years ago, Friday 11th December 1998, I found a very revealing quote in their article ‘Readerwatch – The Daily Telegraph’ opposite the ‘Street of Shame’ column.

This was about 2/3 of a page of quotations from the Torygraph’s readers complaining about the state of the world. Much of this consisted of attacks on the decline in modern sexual morality, the EU and the Speaker wearing a white mackintosh to the Cenotaph at Remembrance Sunday. Oh yes, and Prince Charles showing ‘deplorable bad taste’ in inviting Peter Mandelson to his fiftieth birthday party. Which I think is fair comment.

But some of the most revealing comments are about Blair’s proposal to reform the House of Lords, which at the time included the abolition of the hereditary peerage. One of those outraged by this was Professor Richard Porter of Doncaster, whom the Eye quoted as follows

Professor Richard Porter of Doncaster attacks the Blairite fascist junta from a scientific angle. “Hereditary peers are most deserving of a vote in the Upper House. They embody the best of both nature and nurture. The extraordinary genes of some long forgotten ancestor may now be diluted, but those that remain must give them a slight edge over the rest of us.”

I’ve been haunted by that quote for years, and wondered where it was. It explains so much, like how the vile Toby Young could turn up at a eugenics conference at one of the London universities, rubbing shoulders with real Nazis and anti-Semites. It explains Dominic Cummings and the herd immunity, which simply regards the mass death of the elderly from Covid-19 as merely a cull. Or the same attitude towards the disabled, the long-term unemployed and those at the bottom of the economic and social pile. They’re ‘useless eaters’, as Mike reminds us the Nazis called them, ‘lebensunwertigen leben’ – ‘life unworthy of life’.

Unfortunately, the most visible counterargument to this pernicious, destructive, murderous entitlement is Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister for the 18th century, who just about embodies every defect that comes from such privilege. But for some reason the Tory right loves him, which proves just how warped this country has become.

Tags: anti-semitism, Aristocracy, Conservatives, Coronavirus, Deaths, Dominic Cummingts, Doncaster, Eugenics, House of Lords, Jacob Rees-Mogg, London, Prince Charles, Private Eye, Richard Porter, Social Darwinism, the Disabled, The Elderly, the Poor, tony blair, Universities