London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

The Hancock affair shows the long tradition of the British upper classes’ mentality of arrogance and disregard for law continues

The Hancock affair shows the long tradition of the British upper classes’ mentality of arrogance and disregard for law continues

Just like their elite forebears, those who regard themselves as the natural rulers of the country do what they like, when they like. The laws they pass and the rules they prescribe are for others, not for them.
The exposure of Matt Hancock in the arms of an adviser when he was instructing the public to avoid hugging seemed shocking at first sight. But it is only the latest sad example of misbehaviour among politicians. Boris Johnson ended up in hospital with the coronavirus after boasting about shaking hands with people in hospital in the face of his own government’s advice to self-isolate. Robert Jenrick’s unwise decision to contravene official rules by driving 150 miles to Herefordshire and Shropshire and Dominic Cummings’s foolish excursions to Durham and Barnard Castle suggest a wider failing at the top of society.

In fact, we should not even be surprised by their conduct. It is better understood as a symptom of an established British tradition. Hancock, Johnson, Jenrick, Cummings and others simply acted as members of the British upper classes and those who regard themselves as the natural rulers of the country have always behaved. That is to say, while they pass laws and prescribe rules and regulations for the population at large they do not accept any responsibility on their part to obey them.

It is not surprising therefore that despite insisting that people must maintain a social distance the prime minister continued to shake hands with all sorts of people, some of whom obviously carried the virus and passed it on to him. To judge from the other leading ministers, civil servants and Downing Street figures who have also picked up the coronavirus, his attitude is not uncommon.

They get away with it largely because Britain has long been a very hierarchical and deferential society, and although her gradual adoption of a parliamentary tradition during the nineteenth century challenged these characteristics, it was never strong enough to sweep them away. Consequently, members of parliament and peers have routinely assumed that the legislation they pass and the rules they prescribe are designed chiefly to apply to the lower classes but not to them.

Certain areas of public life tend to highlight this mentality. A prime example is the spread of motoring during the 1920s and 1930s which brought out the anarchic element in British people at all levels. As motor cars were fairly expensive after 1918, most drivers were wealthy individuals, many of whom believed that driving a car was essentially an extension of riding a horse. This meant that as one rode one’s horse wherever one wished and as fast as one wanted, the same should apply to driving. But the horrendous death rates arising from motoring between the wars led governments to intervention and regulation, one form of which was the introduction of speed limits. However, speed limits were bitterly resented by upper-class drivers who blamed pedestrians for causing accidents by ‘dangerous walking’!

Nor did politicians have much idea of setting a good example by respecting the law. In 1924, when one MP, Viscount Curzon, was summonsed for exceeding the speed limit at Chiswick he had already acquired twenty-one convictions for motoring offences since 1908! He was fined twenty pounds but showed no embarrassment. Indeed, Curzon, who succeeded as Earl Howe in 1929, continued to ignore the laws that he himself had helped to make, so much so that one exasperated magistrate advised him to take up motor racing so as to satisfy his passion for excessive speed. He did so at the age of 44, continued to have accidents and almost killed himself on the racetrack in 1937.

But high-handed attitudes went right to the top. In May 1926, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill drove his car from Millbank to Whitehall around the new roundabout – then known as a ‘gyratory’ or ‘merry-go-round’ – at Parliament Square. Unfortunately, Churchill drove in the wrong direction and thus against all the other traffic!

On being stopped by one Constable George Spraggs, Churchill simply refused to be corrected, insisting on his absolute right to drive in an anti-clockwise direction. A heated argument ensued but, according to the Daily Mail, “Mr Churchill persisted and the constable took Mr Churchill’s name and address. The car was then allowed to go on”.

Although a summons should have been issued, Scotland Yard refused to take action against the Chancellor. Like Boris Johnson, Churchill got away with it. Motoring had exposed the strain of recklessness, bordering on anarchism, in the national character. But it also reflected the mentality of arrogance and disregard for law entrenched among the British upper classes which has survived to the present day.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
×