Charlie and the Children Factory

This story about Prince Charles made me think: what would this dozy sod be doing if not for the hand of fate which put him into a position of great wealth and influence? If his mother had been obliged to earn a living by turning her hand to whatever she could get work at: a shop or factory worker, say. How would Charlie have turned out? Because he may not be stupid, but we can say he's no genius, either. Without all the money and servants and the innumerable houses and expensive education. With overbearing yet remote parents, too. Homeless, perhaps? Pushed by circumstance and social inadequacy into a squat somewhere, drinking super-strength lager for breakfast.

Instead of which, he has sufficient influence to have almost any barmy utterance reported in the world press.

A few years ago, Herself and I both got jobs at a residential school. The history of the place was that it had been a quite posh girl's school, but was bought by a rich refugee from the Iranian revolution, and turned into an "international" school. He got killed in a car crash, and the ownership passed to his son, a fucking idiot. The management of the place was a scandal whilst we were there. The petty economies he imposed left the place half heated, the canteen served up the cheapest, nastiest food. Staff came and went so quickly they should have fitted a revolving door. We lasted a year and that was something of a record. I could go on, but the memories are giving me considerable psychic pain. The point is, had he not inherited his father's money and property, this eedjit would have joined Charles in that squat, smelling of urine and lighter fluid. Whereas he's ultimately responsible for the well being of several hundred children.

The bottom line is: it's just plain wrong to obtain power because of an accident of birth.