Ritual is the word
Next time you pass a group of snotty-looking figures in navy blue tailcoats, strutting towards Christ Church's Peckwater Quad, noses in air, to be photographed for their annual picture, stop for just a second before heaving half a brick at them.
Heaving a brick is the logical and right thing to do. What the members of the Bullingdon did to that Fyfield pub was beyond the Pale; however apologetic they were to Ian Rogers, the White Hart's landlord, it could never make up for their disgusting my-fun-is-more-crucial-than-your-laundry-bill attitude.
But as you take aim with your brick, if you look closely at the faces of those Bullingdon members, you'll see the real emotion behind those ice-cold arrogant, laughless expressions. These are not people intent on causing violence and destruction. They are people who are desperate a) to belong and b) to get on.
Why else would you join an organisation that means getting your room trashed? Why else would you pay £100 for the privilege of being sick and very possibly beaten up?
When I was in the Bullingdon, I paid £100 to be rolled down a hill in a Portaloo by a Hungarian count in a field 20 miles out of Oxford. It was the climax of the summer gathering of Oxford's Bullingdon Club in 1993. The cubicle skipped a couple of revolutions and came to a juddering halt. Like a crestfallen Dracula climbing out of his coffin, I gingerly lifted the door; fortunately the door was facing the sky.
My deep blue tailcoat dripped electric blue cleaning fluid as I scrambled back up the hill, manufacturing a crude version of a laugh to show how much I was enjoying myself.
And yet, despite this misery, I returned the next year to go through the same old ritual. And ritual is the word; what the Bullingdon did to the White Hart - and each other - is ritualised violence, violence aimed at showing that they know how to do what is expected of them; that is, give a convincing impression of licentious behaviour. When it comes to their exams, they will all aim for top degrees with the same dogged application they brought to breaking bottles of Chablis over each other's crania. From my Bullingdon generation, there are now four businessmen, three bankers, three lawyers, two art historians, two journalists and an MP.
Occasionally rogues like Darius Guppy have been members. But the Bullingdon, like all society clubs, is more likely to attract those people who want to belong and get on in life. And this means that future journalists - such as former member David Dimbleby - and MPs proliferate. Alan Clark and Boris Johnson were in the Bullingdon.
In my time in the club, we would meet in a private room in a pub in Thame, before heading on to the Bullingdon point-to-point. The talk consisted mostly of low-level teasing and light singing, interspersed with drinking games. There was no malice between the members, who tended to be close friends.
The violence in the White Hart sprouted from the same wellspring as the Hungarian count's behaviour towards me: a competition in playful joshing which becomes so extreme that members are prepared to break the natural bounds of consideration to their fellow human being.
It is an appalling competition, but not an evil one. As you pass this monstrous-looking group off to be photographed, put down your brick. Feel sorrow, not anger, for them. And feel thankful that you don't suffer from the same desperate desire to be wanted.
13th Jan 2005