Politics

As well as being the anniversary of my first ever half century in cricket, today also marks a significant occasion in the calendar: It’s the General Election!

To say I’m excited about this election is an understatement. No-one seems to have a clue what’s going to happen, and not only is the result too close to call, but there is genuinely a lot riding on it. Whereas previous elections have had manifestos from the main parties doing their best to imitate each other, this time round there seems to be a genuine choice. As I post this, voters up and down the nation are heading to the polls to make the choice for our country.

My only frustration is that I can’t join them. A year later and I would have been old enough, but being a mere seventeen year old I’ll have to wait till I’m twenty two now.

It doesn’t help that many of the B blockers, plenty of whom couldn’t care less about politics, are eligible when I’m not. They will be able to vote either in the Windsor constituency, the incumbent MP being Tory backbencher Adam Afriyie, or at home via postal vote.

Most outsiders probably imagine Eton to be a hotbed of conservatism, and they wouldn’t be far wrong. Although politics isn’t talked about as much as you might think, there is a clear right-wing leaning. Mostly because the Tories are the only party who wouldn’t raze Eton to the ground if they had the chance.

But that’s not to say everyone agrees.

In my block I can think of at least four boys who are strong Labour supporters. There’s a B blocker in my house who is as well, and he spent an hour yesterday explaining to me why he was voting for Ed Miliband. Although it could be argued that being a boy at Eton and voting for Labour is a bit like being invited to a party and taking a dump on the cake, I can kind of understand their views. Kind of. I just wish I could work out why I get visions of Moet and Bollinger whenever I think about them.

Alongside the cabal of Labour supporters, there are a few Lib Dems. I can only imagine these people have a history of amnesia, since anyone associated with school or university prepared to vote for Nick Clegg must have a very short memory. Either that or they’re suffering from a strain of political Stockholm syndrome.

Then there’s UKIP, who I don’t think anyone at Eton is going to vote for. Having said that, they are something of a taboo party, a guilty pleasure who you criticise in public to remain upstanding, but secretly vote for in the polling booth. They don’t have CCTV in there yet.

And to round it off, the Green party. Of which being a member is basically proof of your insanity. Enough said.

It’s been well documented how Eton has a rich political history. We can boast 19 prime ministers, hundreds of cabinet ministers and thousands of MPs. We are regularly told by the press how this emanates from our sense of entitlement, although personally I think it’s something they put in the water.

Given the sympathy towards the Conservative party, therefore, and the fact that David Cameron is an Old Etonian, you’d expect most boys to be fans of the Prime Minister. How could we not? He’s not only an OE, but also a nice guy, and has helped resurrect this country from the mess it was left in.

The truth, however, is rather different.

Back in 2010, when David Cameron was elected prime minister, I was proud that my future school was responsible for the education of the country’s leader. When I arrived a year later, I found that most of my peers shared my enthusiasm. Nineteen and counting we thought.

But things have changed. Where once there was affection for David Cameron, there is now a feeling of distrust. Of disappointment. Not because he has stopped being a nice guy, or has ruined the country, but because of the way he appears to have approached politics.

For David Cameron, politics is just a game. It has probably always been a game to him. To us boys at Eton, this is clear in the way he conducts himself, his fake sincerity in front of the camera, the throwaway comments which reveal his ambitions . He reminds us of the ambitious B blocker trying to curry favour with the house master, saying things he doesn't really believe in. Or at least things he only believes to be right because they will help him conserve power. Hypothetically, were he given the choice to change one thing and in the process sacrifice his career, he would rather stay in number 10. No question about it.

Of course, it’s unfair to level this charge at just David Cameron. Westminster does appear to be full of textbook-opinionated career politicians these days, who have little experience of the outside world. That’s not to say they can’t hold the right views or take the right decisions, but it does make the whole concept of politics very superficial.

What makes it particularly uncomfortable, embarrassing I might say even for us boys at Eton to have David Cameron in number 10, is that the school, believe it or not, doesn’t actually encourage us to be slimy, power-hungry spivs. Maybe that’s how we’ll all turn out, I don’t know, but at the moment most of us want to do something for the right reason. Make a difference and all that. 

This is not to say absolutely no-one at Eton likes David Cameron. Many people do, and not just out of tribal loyalty - however, they are not as numerous as you’d think. I would vote for him, I admit, but I’d just rather have someone else in charge.

Who that someone else might be could be one of the big questions after this election, depending on the result. Boris Johnson, another OE, is at the head of the Tory queue waiting to replace David Cameron. Were he to end up Prime Minister he’d be our twentieth PM in total.

But is he any different to David Cameron? He’s funnier, more engaging, more charismatic, and arguably more attractive to voters. But deep down, are his motives any different? One of the older beaks here, old enough to have taught him many years ago, perhaps summed it up best when he told us Boris was ‘conniving’. Conniving - a strong way to describe a teenager.

I’m probably being a hit harsh in all this. And hypocritical too – after all, I’ve been waging my own, hardly honest, campaign for the house captaincy next year. Which could be the start of my own journey that ends up in Downing Street. Why not? You heard it here first.