Product Description

No one would attack equality, would they? Quentin Letts just might. Not the notion of equality itself but the way it has become an industry for lobbyists, class warriors and New Labour's ageing Trots. Egalitarianism is a mania for today's policymakers and the soupy-brained halfwits we contrive to elect to public office. Appalled by free thinking, these equality junkies want to crush all individualism in our nation of once indignant eccentrics. Equality has been defiled by the ethnic grievance gang, by the harpies of feminist orthodoxy, by those risk-averse jackboots of town-hall bureaucracy with their quotas and creeds. Fair damsel Liberty has been whored by the best practice brigade, by the proceduralists of multinational corporatism in their company ties, by the glottal-stopping, municipal bores who insist that everyone must have prizes and that no culture can be dominant. Tilters against convention are assailed for their 'inappropriate' behaviour. Supporters of grammar schools are 'snobs'. Social nuance, once a vital lure to self-improvement, is deemed 'unacceptable'. Twenty-first century Britain's political cadre is so paralysed by class paranoia that it stops us attaining the best in schools, manners, language, fashion, popular culture. Elitism is a dirty word. The BBC stamps out the Queen's English because it is not 'accessible'. Celebrity morons are cultural pin-ups. Thick rools, OK. The glottal-stopping oikishness of our urban streets can be linked to modern equality's refusal to deplore. The prattishness of Jonathan Ross arises from a mad insistence that vulgarity is valid. Still think equality is such a great thing? You might not after reading this urgent, exasperated, witheringly funny book. Praise for 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain: '[Quentin Letts] discharges his duty with flair and tracer precision...an angry book, beautifully written.' The Spectator.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #860 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-26
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

About the Author
Quentin Letts is parliamentary sketch writer and theatre critic for the Daily Mail. A regular broadcaster on radio and television, he was formerly New York correspondent for The Times and gossip columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He recently presented Radio 4’s series What's The Point Of? He is the author of the best-selling 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain.

Customer Reviews

brilliant writing
I just loved this book and could not put it down. It gave voice to all the rage I have felt over the last ten years at the awful decline in standards in this country. When we have one ex Prime Minister whose early ambition was to a pop star and another who thinks he can gain popularity by appreciating such tripe as the X factor, just what have we come to? There is such a thing as excellence, there are such things as good standards of behaviour. The truth (sad for some, but understood by those who were lucky enough to live their formative years in a less trivial age) is that the best man can achieve is only ever attained through a combination of genuine talent and an awful lot of hard graft and self-discipline. How can this nation ever survive in a competitive world if these values are not inculcated in our education system and fostered in the offerings of our television programmes? Most people I know prefer "Little Dorrit" and those excellent earlier series such as "War and Peace" and "I Claudius" to "Big Brother" and all of the rest of the reality TV rubbish. What we get now is "bread and circuses" An attempt by a powerful elite to satisfy a public they assume to be utterly stupid! Quentin Letts manages to pinpoint all that is wrong in Britain a way which will both make you laugh and feel glad that your views are shared. Get it and read it!!

society modern Britain dumb down New Labour
Quentin Letts has written a furious denunciation of Modern Britain and post 97 dumb down culture.New Labour have wrecked society with a creepy insistence on micro managing Great Britain's class system. Letts also shows us the deliberate manipulation by the media to promote mediocre standards at all costs.
Written as an amusing bitter examination of Modern Britain's cultural aspirations I can almost imagine the chavs and leftwingers yelling out "yeah mate" or even "yo Blair" whilst knocking back the alco pops , belching and with eyes glued to a TV screen.
Shell suits, cheap airlines, education, celebrity cults, television - all are disected in this wonderful book.
My contempt for government hardened when Prime Minister Tony Blair enquired of the Home Secretary about the fate of a fictional character from a soap opera during Parliament. Duh! things couldn't get any lower. However they could and unfortunately did.
A country filled with CCTV, obsessive nanny state health and safety bodies and oppressive officialdom.Allied with the dubious green cult and celebrities from politics through to TV reality show participants.
It is getting rare to find an author who doesn't pontificate about diversity, role models and posturing with political correctness but Quentin doesn't disappoint the reader.