John Prescott tried to ram several bastions of privilege before he got into Rugby School. Eton turned him down, but the headmaster of Rugby, Patrick Derham, had been educated himself on a charitable scholarship, so felt he could defend himself on the Prescott charge that rich parents bought their children success. Mr Derham, whom I met at a preview screening for Tiger Aspect's Prescott: The Class System and Me, on BBC2 tomorrow, believed that educational aspiration was a first principle of human nature. He had skilfully choreographed scholarship pupils from non-privileged backgrounds to debate with Mr Prescott. They could not understand the former deputy prime minister's aversion to the ladder of opportunity. Mr Prescott looked in vain for fellow class warriors – the working men's club has little meaning in a multicultural, individualist, internet age.
If only Mr Prescott had known about the Nat Rothschild/George Osborne story at the time, he might have had some better ammunition to throw at public schools. Does not the bond and the emotional falling out between the two demonstrate the secret, slightly homoerotic nature of the old boy network? Did they quarrel because Osborne betrayed the fraternity of the sinister Bullingdon Club for the sake of political expediency? Wasn't it another public school boy, E M Forster, who said that if he had to choose between betraying country or friend he hoped he would remain loyal to his (assuredly fellow public school) friend?
It certainly looks like an Anthony Powell novel from the outside. Many years ago, I was invited to the "salons" of a funny and vivid old lady called Elizabeth Furse, who collected the young. Her favoured group included some topical protagonists, including the financial PR maestro Roland Rudd and Boris Johnson. Each had a strong sense of personal destiny, but there were no blooded vows of friendship.
What the Osborne-Rothschild affair has shown is how effortlessly money trumps old school ties. An acquaintance of both men explained to me: "Nat was never that close to George and would throw him under a bus in a heartbeat if George jeopardised more lucrative friendships."
A more menacing quote in The Spectator came from "friends" of Mr Rothschild: "George doesn't play in that league ... [the international billionaires' club]. He was granted honorary membership of the club for a few days and he blew it."
Nat Rothschild's loyalty to his Russian client Oleg Deripaska demanded that he explode old Bullingdon Club associations. Simon Sebag Montefiore revealed in his history Young Stalin how the tyrant was bankrolled by the Rothschild dynasty. It has some form with demanding Russians.
The Bullingdon photographs provoke furious revulsion, and were described last week as a portrait of obscene arrogance. Not just excitable young men dressing up? One of the figures in the gallery of shame is my colleague Harry Mount, a gentle-natured author who has never schemed or stabbed anyone in the back and who is a model of courtesy and humility.
My fear is that John Prescott, by concentrating on class, is missing a much more powerful social evil. It is extreme wealth that corrupts and divides. Mr Rothschild turned on Mr Osborne because a mere politician is no match for an oligarch (unless he is Vladimir Putin). The world is carved up behind our backs not by undeserving earls but by the rootless rich, whose only allegiance is money. The understanding of this is what is behind the fashionable resurgence of Marxism. John Prescott is behind the curve.
Modesty: In praise of a virtue that keeps its silence
Two events last week seem to me to illuminate the state we are in. The first was the death of the literary agent Pat Kavanagh. What made her unusual were not just her famed beauty and her enduring marriage to Julian Barnes. It was also her anachronistic distaste for personal publicity and her professional gift of silence.
I last spoke to her earlier this year when I had arranged to interview one of her authors. But this would have interfered with a deal she had made elsewhere. She asked me to reconsider, and I huffed that I was within my rights, that her author had been perfectly happy with the arrangement and that I was practically on my way.... Pat said nothing until I had tailed off. Then she said quietly: "Thank you." My rambling protest was a prelude to surrender.
Compare this with the wholly modern figure of Kerry Katona, whose slurred interview on ITV's morning television is a guaranteed internet hit. The programme's co-presenter Phillip Schofield has denied ambushing the singer, saying: "The last thing I want to do is witness a car crash in front of my eyes." That may be, but the world he inhabits cries out for car crashes.
Katona was indignant about the line of questioning. She may have looked and sounded as sorted as Amy Winehouse, but she had shown up on the programme to "relaunch herself". Her route to professional rehabilitation was to slice up her body for the cameras. This is a woman who will pay any price to keep herself in the public eye.
Like Farrah Fawcett, who conducted a barely coherent interview with David Letterman after she had appeared, with middle-aged defiance, in 'Playboy' magazine, the disintegration is more compelling than the rise. Pat Kavanagh reminded us of an unfailing yet ignored human truth. There is no dignity in personal publicity.
Continental artists have a 'je ne sais quoi'
Simon Cowell is accused of professional complacency because he has become careless about remembering the names of X Factor contestants. I think it is a cry from the heart – he is unconsciously drawing attention to the production-line quality of the show. It is really only the misery memoirs that distinguish the performers. Last weekend I went with friends to see the French singer Camille at the Roundhouse. Some of her attention-seeking is tiresomely French, but what is astounding is her originality and depth of talent. We have tended to look down on European singers as inferior to the English/American tradition. Yet Europe can produce a charm and individuality far more thrilling than that of the manufactured Cowell babes. He knows this, which is why he can no longer tell the difference between his creations.
Sarah Sands is editor in chief of British 'Reader's Digest'
Janet Street-Porter is away
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