Virtue signalling is really status signalling

A £19,000-a-year London day school was in the news this week because it has started instructing its pupils about ‘white privilege’ and ‘microaggressions’. Apparently, St Dunstan’s in south London, which boasts Chuka Umunna among its alumni, teaches its well-heeled students that the royal family bolsters expectations of ‘inherited white privilege’, asks them to ‘explore’ why Meghan Markle faced ‘additional challenges’ compared with Kate Middleton when she married a prince, and tells them why it’s important for the National Trust to examine the colonial past of its country houses and links to the slave trade.

I was surprised this story attracted so much press interest. Surely a majority of top independent schools have been teaching their charges about these issues for some time? And quite right too. I say that not because I’ve made a Damascene conversion to critical race theory, but because children need to master the lingua franca of social justice ideology if they’re going to shin up the greasy pole in their careers.