First a little quote for your delectation, see what you make of it:
So I’ma let’em know how a nigga’s livin’
Checking the muthafuckas cause nobody ain’t givin’ a damn thing
To a nigga, a real nigga
So I’m livin’ by the muthafuckin’ trigger
This verse comes from the signature-song lyrics of N**gaz With Attitude, widely known as the world’s nastiest rap band. These lyrics, just take my word for it, are in no way exceptional – they represent this band’s standard fare.
Now what kind of man would describe himself as a devoted fan of NWA? I know what you’re going to say: degenerate, moron, savage, barbarian, all those nice words. But hold your horses: it’s our future prime minister you’re talking about.
For it was Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne who owned up to his affection for these artists in what the papers described as his ‘revealing interview’.
It was indeed that, highly revealing. What it revealed is that, when Dave starts earning his lecture-circuit billions, we’re likely to have as PM a man whom one could describe as a revolting nonentity only at a kinder moment.
There are only two possibilities here: either he’s telling the truth or lying. I submit that in either case he’s unfit to lead our government, or indeed to occupy his present position.
If he is lying, it can be for one reason only: to offset his upper-class image by posing as a man raised in the gutter and anxious to return there – a true man of the people. He needn’t bother: we already know that his ‘class’ is a thin veneer concealing a typical spiv reaching for the brass ring.
Belonging to the upper classes ought to mean more than having a father who sells enough wallpaper for the family to live high off the hog and put their young through expensive schools. It ought to involve espousing and upholding the highest cultural, moral and intellectual values.
This doesn’t necessarily mean being a highly cultured, moral and intellectual individual himself, though that couldn’t hurt. It does, however, mean knowing what makes a country civilised and trying to keep it so.
It’s enough to look at George’s record in public life to see that he doesn’t fall into that category – no man who is systematically taking the country’s economy to the brink of collapse, while pretending that prosperity is in full swing, can possibly be civilised.
But it’s possible that George wants to go even further, to pitch his populism at the lowest level possible, judging correctly that this is where most of the potential electorate can be found. If that’s true, he shouldn’t be allowed within swearing distance of Number 10 – no man who craves an office to that extent is qualified to take it.
The other possibility is that he’s telling the truth, that he really is a fan of NWA. This would mean that he doesn’t even know what our civilisation is – and what he knows he hates.
No man able to sit down and listen to such effluvia (I’d go so far as to say ‘any pop music’, but some may regard such a view as too extreme), never mind liking it, is fit to be a public figure of any kind. This kind of preference betokens much more than simply a lack of aesthetic taste, though this is bad enough.
An NWA fan is ipso facto a barbarian, which word in its original meaning designated a hostile outsider to a civilisation. It stands to reason that such a man should never occupy one of this civilisation’s highest political offices.
And you know what’s the worst thing about George’s public declaration of his taste in music? That he doesn’t even realise how monstrous it sounds.