Schoolboy error
IF THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO WAS WON on the playing fields of Eton, the current culture wars could be decided in the quads of the country’s increasingly woke public schools. Whereas in the past these once inherently conservative institutions aspired to produce field marshals, archbishops and bankers, they are now more committed to producing a new generation of social justice warriors.
The tired, old, oppressive Union Jack that flew above Eton College, inspiring so many heroes of the British Empire, is being, symbolically, folded away, replaced by the rainbow flag of diversity and inclusion: it flutters in the Berkshire air, flirting with the Queen’s up on the hill at Windsor. Nowadays you are almost as likely to bump into a group of public school kids at a Pride event as you are to overhear them at Henley Royal Regatta or Badminton. The arms race of old, which saw independent schools spending millions of
