Nick Clegg and privilege

I think Nick Clegg (and the rest of us Liberal Democrats) are letting the media, and the other parties, get away with stabs at his privileged background. You're just the same as Cameron, they say, privileged background, posh school. And they get a defensive and faintly embarrassed response.

But that's not the point. You don't get to choose your parents. You don't get to choose where you're born or (rarely at least) where you go to school. What matters is how you react to that when you get to the age and stage where you do make choices. And there the difference is clear. Cameron has chosen privilege. He believes in it; it oozes from every pore. He thinks he is part of the elite who he thinks deserve to run the country. Clegg has chosen the British liberal way, to regard every citizen as being of equal merit. Cameron has chosen the elite, Clegg has chosen everybody. He should say so.