Class war is taking a strange turn in Corbyn’s Britain

The campaign to prevent actor Damian Lewis from being the celebrity guest at a north London comprehensive school is a misguided attack against social immobility

Damian Lewis (Reuters)

I blame Jeremy Corbyn. He has made class war fashionable again, and in his own backyard the revolutionary forces are gathering. The barricades are manned, and the first shots are being fired across the class divide. Eat the Rich! Or at least stop them turning on our lumière show… This is a story of such trivial importance, but yet it says something about Britain in the early 21st century.

Acland Burghley is a comprehensive school in the Tufnell Park area of north London (the heart of Mr Corbyn’s constituency) and, as part a programme of events to celebrate its 50th anniversary, it has organised a light show that will illuminate the school’s brutalist façade.

So far, so parochial. The headmaster of Acland Burghley, casting around for a celebrity to open the display, alighted (so to speak) on the actor Damian Lewis, who lives in the area. The star of Homeland was happy to do his bit for the community and agreed to flick the switch. But this is where the story takes a disquieting turn.

Some former pupils of the school took exception to Lewis, because he was educated at Eton. They say it is “wholly inappropriate” for a man educated at an establishment that “represents the reproduction of privilege and inequality in the UK” should be given a lead role at such a demotic urban comprehensive.

And so, in the way of the modern world, they launched an online petition and a hashtag (#realburghley) to gather support, demanding that Lewis should be barred from the event. They have urged that the school keep it real, and should ask one of its former students – such as the pop star Ms Dynamite, or her brother, the rapper Akala – to perform the ceremonial duties.

The headmaster, Nicholas John, was commendably unbowed in the face of a nascent digital protest – to which the disinterested and the politically motivated have attached themselves. “Damian Lewis very kindly agreed to open the light show,” said Mr John, “to give up an evening of his time. The school he went to is of no consequence.”

That assertion, of course, is not quite true. The school Damian Lewis went to is of considerable consequence. I have encountered quite a few Old Etonians in the course of my career, and whatever scholastic advantages Eton offers, it cauterises its pupils with a confidence that gives them a distinct advantage over those of us who are closer to Acland Burghley on the educational spectrum.

That, however, is not the point. On the narrow question of whether Lewis is well cast for this job, Mr John is right: the actor’s background is of no significance. But we live in a trigger-happy world as far as connecting outrage is concerned. And, with a few clicks and keyboard strokes, a fully fledged protest is off and running.

The rise of Mr Corbyn, and the rhetoric he has inspired, has quite correctly put the serious and growing inequalities in British society high on the political agenda. There are so many reasons to feel angry, and social mobility is indeed one of them.

A recent study revealed that a young person from a middle-class background is 20 times more likely to get a professional job than a contemporary from a working-class background.

That’s worth manning the barricades for, rather than the nonsensical posturing over an actor’s bona fides to switch on a light show.