Class(room) war

Janet Daley: When did wanting the best for your children become a crime?

The Cameron project has, at a stroke, restored patrician condescension to the heart of Conservative philosophy. Apparently oblivious to the sinister aspect that their own upper-class, public-school backgrounds would inject into this debate, they have revived a species of class war that prevailed in this country long before the Marxist version: the aristocratic loathing of the middle-class upstart. The destitute are sympathetic because they can be patronised and "helped": the real enemy is the striving, overly-conscientious burgher who insists on helping himself.