When a carpenter's son or a lawyer's daughter decides to enter the family profession, it's accepted as the natural way of things. So pity the unfortunate offspring of the Blairite political elite, who, following in their parents' footsteps, must contend with loud accusations of nepotism. Or, in the case of Georgia Gould, aspiring MP and daughter of Labour peer Philip Gould, be derided by prospective constituents on their blogs, thus: "A 22-year-old upper-middle-class daughter of a smarmy high priest of New Labour would go down as well here as a bucket of week-old vomit."
Last week Philip, Baron Gould of Brookwood, a close friend and former adviser to Tony Blair, was forced to defend his daughter against a "smear campaign" mounted by those opposed to her selection for the safe Labour seat of Erith and Thamesmead. Most of the dissent came from within the Labour Party, one of whose number reportedly labelled her success a "stitch-up". Gould was nonetheless shortlisted and, should she win the seat – which currently has a Labour majority of 9,878 – would become the youngest Labour MP in history.
Gould is one of a new power generation, a dynamic group of yougsters with impeccable political pedigrees pushing their feet into the parliamentary door.
She might also reasonably be expected to have inherited her father's formidable political brain. Alistair Campbell, a close family friend, described her on his blog as "a wonderful young woman of deep values and convictions and whose dedication to Labour and progressive causes matches that of anyone I know, whatever their age."
Gould herself recently wrote in a leaflet to the consituency that she wanted to "break down apathy and involve local people in local politics". She pointed out, too, that the House of Commons currently contains just three people under 30. A young, committed, female MP – who wouldn't want one of those?
Hackles were raised, too, when 18-year-old Emily Benn, granddaughter of Tony, niece of Hilary, last year became the latest in the greatest of Labour dynasties to announce her intention to run for Parliament. Benn, who only took her A-levels in the summer, will be the party's candidate for East Worthing and Shoreham at the next general election. She is unlikely to win the seat from an 8,000-plus Conservative majority, but a promising future beckons should she fare well.
Meanwhile, Will Straw, son of the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, is now an associate director at the Centre for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington think-tank headed by Obama staffer John Podesta. Last week, he was interviewed on Radio 4's Today programme about his new book, The Change We Need: What Britain Can Learn From Obama's Victory.
While his political parentage no doubt gave him impetus, the familial association with another "high priest of New Labour" by no means makes Straw Jr an acolyte. As president of the Oxford University Student Union, for instance, he loudly opposed the higher education policies of his father's Government.
"It isn't unusual for intellectual merit to be passed from one generation to the next," says journalist and author Toby Young, whose father Michael wrote cautionary dystopia The Rise of the Meritocracy. "I wouldn't begrudge the sons and daughters of [politicians] their success as being somehow being less deserved. People no more deserve their success than they deserve their lack of success. Because no one actually deserves success."
Political acumen may be passed from generation to generation, but perhaps it's inevitable that the rise of a dynastic political class breeds distrust in politics, too. And if the new political class simply mimics the old ruling class, what of the celebrity class? With the rise not only of Peaches Geldof and Paris Hilton, but also of, say, Chloe Madeley, daughter of Richard and Judy, or Amber Le Bon, daughter of Yasmin and Simon – recently snapped in swimwear that recalls her mother's modelling heyday – are we witnessing, as Young asked in a recent piece for Prospect magazine, the rise of a "celebritariat"?
"One of the reasons celebrities possess the allure and prestige and authority that they do in our society," explains Young, "is that they're perceived to have earned their celebrity status on merit – whether because they're particularly good at football, or a particularly talented singer. The problem with people who have conspicuously inherited their celebrity status, like Peaches Geldof, is that they make the celebrity class look less meritocratic, which threatens the authority that celebrities as a species possess. It gives celebrity the appearance of a self-perpetuating oligarchy. And instead of being open to all, its places are being taken by the children of other celebrities."
Gould, Benn and Straw are, of course, "very different from the Peaches Geldofs and Paris Hiltons of this world, who aspire only to be members of the celebrity class and nothing else," adds Young. "They have slightly higher aspirations."
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