Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

The rise of the Econian

The rise of the Econian

A study has shown that protestors who took part in Extinction Rebellion’s demonstrations last year were overwhelmingly middle-class, highly educated and southern. Well, there’s a surprise. It turns out some 85 per cent of the London protestors had a degree, a third had a postgraduate qualification and two thirds described themselves as middle-class. Three quarters of those charged with offences lived in the south.
And, if the accents I heard from the protestors as I biked through the throng on my way to work were anything to go on, a high percentage were public school--educated, too. I’d never seen so many Econians — the public school boys and girls who rule the wokerati world.

Where their ancestors ran Whitehall, the army and New South Wales, Econians are leading lights in eco-protests, cancel culture, Marxist politics and the trans rights movement. Just like their forebears, they run their new fiefdoms thanks to the advantages of a top education, a mastery of the new language of the ruling class, and an air of confident, cold command that brooks no dissent. And all this is done with a studied diffidence about their public school background.

Take the new star of the media and the drag queen world, Amrou Al-Kadhi. A filmmaker, performer in the drag troupe Denim and author of Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen, Al-Kadhi went to Eton and Cambridge. But you wouldn’t know that from Al-Kadhi’s own website, which carries the description: ‘Professional unicorn. Queer Iraqi non-binary Brit… selected as a Screen International Star of Tomorrow [with] a comedy series called Nefertiti in early development.’

For Econians, their school and university constitute the background that dare not speak its name — whether it’s King of the Eco-Hacks George Monbiot (Stowe and Oxford); or Jeremy Corbyn’s old righthand man Seumas Milne (Winchester and Oxford); or Corbyn and Milne’s sidekick James Schneider (also Winchester and Oxford).

In Fight Club, the 1999 film starring Brad Pitt, the first rule was ‘You do not talk about Fight Club’. With the Econians, you do not talk about public school, let alone bray about it. Real confidence comes from not having to show off about your advantages.

You don’t have to be left-wing to be an Econian. The newly tieless David Cameron picked up on the movement a decade ago when he invited people to ‘Vote blue, go green’. It just goes to show how brilliant public school boys are at adapting to a changing world. If you can master Latin and Greek, then the ever-shifting minefields of gender-neutral language, transgender pronouns, safe spaces and trigger warnings are a doddle. With that sort of background, it’s a short step to running the thought police of the Brave New Woke World.

To be fair to the Econians, they haven’t gone woke in a cynical, Machiavellian way. Just like their forebears, they were educated to lead the world they were brought up in, whatever shape it took. They progress instinctively, quickly picking up the ways in which they need to adapt. Again just like their ancestors, they have all the eternal advantages: money, connections, education and the right sort of accent. And the result is much the same as it’s always been: posh children shutting working-class children out of the top positions in life.

Take that classic Econian Etonian, the Archbishop of Canterbury, piously spouting platitudes in his kitchen while keeping all his churches closed to parishioners during lockdown. Even vicars weren’t allowed into their churches on their own — the ultimate form of social distancing. The virtue-signalling of the Church of England’s ruling class was much more important than the desperate need of ordinary people to take spiritual solace in a religious place of beauty.

The public school system itself is forever changing in order to teach its pupils to climb to the top of these newly developing hierarchies. The Econian headmasters of Eton and Westminster (my alma mater, I must confess) are now decolonising the curriculum after appeals from recently departed pupils. I was told by one Westminster old boy that when he was at the school in the 1970s, the history curriculum was pretty much decolonised anyway by left-wing teachers. But no matter — any Econian worth his salt mustn’t just accept any existing wokeness in his world, he must be seen to be implementing ever-increasing degrees of wokeness himself.

These sort of techniques, instilled at public school, are then honed by the ruthless demands of campus culture. No wonder the public school-educated Oxbridge graduate enters the real world armed with a quiver of weapons that will see off anyone less qualified in the climb up the greasy pole.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×