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The Nobility Of New Money
By admin | February 27, 2008
On a golden summer evening I watched the Magic Flute performed at the country house of one of the new breed of entrepreneur squires. The message of the opera, so enjoyed by a fast London set arriving by helicopter, was moral fundamentalism. Virtue triumphs. Mankind must show patience, courage and faith. Womankind is highly strung, difficult and capricious. Only when women submit to the enlightened, high-minded, Masonic male, can they achieve happiness. The grave, bass voice of Sarastro in the Magic Flute, is rather similar to that of Gordon Brown.
The Queen of the Night is a Cherie Blair figure, her power vanquished along with her Carole Caplin-like ladies in waiting, by the new age of Science and Reason.
The owner of the fine house made his money in the technology revolution yet his instincts were those of any duke. He talked about heritage and preservation. He greeted his audience from the village with a gentle air of noblesse oblige.
I remember Conrad Black, the fallen newspaper proprietor, saying a decade ago that if a true businessman made a million he wanted to make a second million but if an Englishman made a million, he just wanted to buy a house in the country.
This turns out to be felicitous. There have been many articles about the new squirearchy who have bought up land and houses from the impoverished aristocracy. Many of the pieces, in the anti-capitalist press, have suggested that asset-stripping surely follows and communities are lost.
On the contrary, the new wealth has lavished care and even heating on Britain’s old houses. The most beautiful stretches of Britain have always been privately owned - or cared for by the National Trust. Compare the coast line of North Norfolk or Dorset to the overdeveloped, ugly seascapes in the south-east.
There is more good news for landed Britain. I am told that Gordon Brown’s call for Britishness has been translated by James Purnell, the new culture secretary, as an imperative to preserve old buildings. English Heritage, banished during the days of Cool Britannia, are cosy with the new government.
This may be the way of the future. New money, a neo-feudal system and country opera that even Gordon Brown would not find too frivolous.
A television researcher telephones me on my home number. “Are you away on holiday?” she asks dolefully. I reply that, apparently, I am not. “We sad people who work during August” she says, companionably.
On the contrary. I feel smug to have got the holiday out of the way in late July, just before Heathrow and Gatwick collapse under the weight of human traffic and uselessness of their infrastructure. Far better to get one’s lost luggage story off one’s chest before being trumped by everybody else. In August, I have London to myself. I can get tickets for Joan of Arc at the National. I could probably turn up on spec at the Ivy. Parking is easy.
A teacher at a London private schooluses the phrase “opulent neglect” to describe the attitude of some wealthy parents towards their children. These are the rich kids whose main means of supervision is a credit card and club membership. These provide meals, physical activity - tennis, golf, sailing - laundry and attentive staff. Many children fantasise about living in a hotel - some practically do.
I recently met the teenage children of an acrimoniously divorced couple who were booked into a European hotel, so that the mother or the father could separately spend time with them on neutral ground. Most evenings the kids ended up on their own, arriving in the restaurant in low slung jeans and angry expressions.
I heard of another couple who booked their daughters on a tennis holiday, not noticing that they had gone without rackets but with enough cash to drink dry the Spanish bars.
The ruling classes of old did not spend much time with their children but there were cosy figures of nannies and housekeepers and a residual wartime belief in austerity. The trouble with opulent neglect is that it gives too much and too little. Before they have turned 20, the kids have tired of rich food, fabulous locations, all technology. They are not suited to work - work for what? - and they are used to buying friendship. There is an emotionally feral air to them. The teacher says that they are accorded none of the sympathy given to poor neglected children, although their hearts are as battered and bleak.
There are heroes and villains inHarry Potter but the journalist Rita Skeeter is a figure merely ridiculed and despised. Her Quick Quotes Quill automatically misquotes her subjects, she cannot spell and she reduces nobility and complexity to stupidity and cliché. One can imagine the pleasure Rowling’s creation gives to the powerful and the famous.
Rita Skeeter is not an admirable journalist but she has an impressive cunning. She can turn herself into a beetle to eavesdrop on her subjects. She is chastised for reporting Hagrid’s confession that he is a half giant, which alarms Hogwarts parents. As usual, shoot the messenger.
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows her lack of moral taste gets her into more trouble. She brings out a book
If I were Rita Skeeter, I would make the grumpy point that Harry would have once been grateful for the publicity.
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Emmanuel Ayomide Praise
Emmanuel Ayomide Praise is a world leading internet marketer, e-commerce professional, wealth creation agent, public/motivational speaker and media consultant. He is available on the internet at
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