Bog-Standard Britain

No one would attack equality, would they? Quentin Letts just might. Not the notion of equality itself but the way it has become an industry for lobbyists, class warriors and New Labour's ageing Trots.

Egalitarianism is a mania for today's policymakers and the soupy-brained halfwits we contrive to elect to public office. Appalled by free thinking, these equality junkies want to crush all individualism in our nation of once indignant eccentrics.

Equality has been defiled by the ethnic grievance gang, by the harpies of feminist orthodoxy, by those risk-averse jackboots of town-hall bureaucracy with their quotas and creeds. Fair damsel Liberty has been whored by the best practice brigade, by the proceduralists of multinational corporatism in their company ties, by the glottal-stopping, municipal bores who insist that everyone must have prizes and that no culture can be dominant.

Tilters against convention are assailed for their 'inappropriate' behaviour. Supporters of grammar schools are 'snobs'. Social nuance, once a vital lure to self-improvement, is deemed 'unacceptable'.

Twenty-first century Britain's political cadre is so paralysed by class paranoia that it stops us attaining the best in schools, manners, language, fashion, popular culture. Elitism is a dirty word. The BBC stamps out the Queen's English because it is not 'accessible'. Celebrity morons are cultural pin-ups. Thick rools, OK.

The glottal-stopping oikishness of our urban streets can be linked to modern equality's refusal to deplore. The prattishness of Jonathan Ross arises from a mad insistence that vulgarity is valid.

Still think equality is such a great thing? You might not after reading this urgent, exasperated, witheringly funny book.

Praise for 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain:

'[Quentin Letts] discharges his duty with flair and tracer precision...an angry book, beautifully written.' The Spectator