Speaking for England

Three decades ago, when his voice still carried some weight, Malcolm Muggeridge reckoned that social historians of the future would be puzzled by the middle-class death wish that took root after the second world war.

It isn’t hard to see what he meant. Some time in the Sixties, politicians and other public figures who had been educated at private schools started to feel ashamed at their good fortune, and moved heaven and earth to deny those who followed the advantages they had enjoyed. Today the consequences are evident wherever one looks. Thousands of lives have been blighted by the doctrine of bogus egalitarianism, and we are all weaker for it.

But it is not just schools and universities where standards have been eroded. Last week the BBC Trust, the corporation’s regulatory body, assisted the wretched process by calling into question the virtues of Radios 3 and 4. It seems that the qualities which sustain these stations, apparent to nearly everybody who listens to them, irk the Thought Police at Broadcasting House.