Eton voting song , Who now likes Old Etonians? According to
Dr Eric A. Nordlinger, the answer is the Conservative working man. In his book The Working Class Tories (MacGibbon and Kee 55s), Dr Nordlinger concludes That voters included in this category—which he defines as manual workers who support the Conservatives—positively like being bossed about, preferably by peers or the sons of peers. Dr Nordlinger goes further. It is not only Conservative workers who like being ordered about, but Labour workers also. All the world, it seems, loves a lord; and the political quality which is prized above all others is that of strong- leadership.
Despite the impressive amount of survey- information which backs up these findings, and the somewhat less impressive sociologese in which the findings are clothed,,the student of politics is not taken wholly by surprise. Recently Dr A. P. Thornton, in his book The Habit of Deference, came to much the same conclusion by using historical rather than sociological methods. And Mr Harold Wilson, with his talk of `unpopular decisions' and 'tough government,' agrees with them —though there are s nc that of late this -kind of appeal has begun to wear a little thin.
Should the Conservative party, as some commentators have suggested, therefore at' tempt to make itself more attractive to these `deferential' voters, whether by appoinalg even more Old Etonians to positions of in- fluence in the party, or by emphasising its belief in 'authority'? The party should 111 not to take Dr Nordlinger's conclusions too -solemnly. As George Orwell observed a long time ago, the Erinii.13 are a strange Pc° (the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish another matter entirely): they are nasty their children and nice to strangers sk bump into them in buses : and, similar]) deference of the kind which Dr Nordlin, tabulates can co-exist perfectly easily 1st radicalism and even outright libertariani It -would be unwise of Tories, who wish retain, and to increase, their working- vote, to forget this curious aspect 10 national character.
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