Cameron's cronies in the Bullingdon class of '87
Last updated at 18:30 13 February 2007
(1) Sebastian Grigg, (2) David Cameron, (3) Ralph Perry-Robinson, (4) Ewen Fergusson, (5) Matthew Benson, (6) Sebastian James, (7) Jonathan Ford, (8) Boris Johnson, (9) Harry Eastwood
For all its comic potential - those beautifully coiffed 1980s haircuts are true museum pieces - this is picture of David Cameron and his fellow members of Oxford University?s Bullingdon Club is a serious matter.
For there is an argument that it is this picture, not any allegations about what the young Cameron may or may not have smoked at Eton, that could have the more damaging effect on the Tory leader?s prospects at the next General Election.
More here...
• Cameron finally comes clean on cannabis claims
An awful lot of people, if not most of the population, have tried cannabis at some point; some enjoy it still.
Not very many have made a habit of dressing up in £1,200 tailcoats before getting hogwhimperingly drunk on champagne and destroying restaurant dining rooms.
Naturally, being young gentlemen, they pay for all the damage afterwards.
Such gestures of financial generosity have not always been enough to fend off the attentions of the Oxford constabulary.
In one of the most notorious incidents involving the Buller, as it is known, 17 members were arrested two years ago after trashing the cellar of a 15th century pub outside Oxford, the White Hart at Fyfield. Four spent the night in the cells, including the Hon Alexander Fellowes, son of the Queen?s former private secretary, Lord Fellowes.
Young Fellowes - or Beetle, as he is known to friends - is not the only young man to get into serious trouble through the Bullingdon: many members have gone on to become respectable members of society, among them David Dimbleby, George Osborne, the late Alan Clark and Boris Johnson.
The Bullingdon Club was not always about drinking and destruction.
Founded more than 150 years ago as a hunting and cricket club, it is now - theoretically - a dining club which exists to support hunting, and has a traditional breakfast every year at the Bullingdon point to point.
But its notoriety was established as long ago as the 1920s, when Evelyn Waugh satirised it in Decline and Fall as the Bollinger Club.
Drink, not drugs, is the Bullingdon members preferred route to oblivion.
Cannabis - despite the 15-year-old Cameron?s interest in it - is deemed to make members less prone to wanton destruction.
Bullingdon members are nothing if not imaginative in their drunken antics: one member was once locked in a portable lavatory before a second member, a Hungarian count, rolled him down the hill.
On another occasion at L?Ortolan, the Michelin starred restaurant in Berkshire, one member consumed so much champagne that he decided to forgo his starter and instead ate a wine glass, which he "munched on contendedly".
Oxford University?s Bullingdon Club - The Members:
1. Sebastian Grigg
Still close to David Cameron, Grigg knew him from Eton and lives nearby, in Holland Park. Born into privilege - he is the oldest son of Baron Altrincham, Anthony Ullick David Dundas Grigg, and went to Eton before going to Oriel College - he is now a member of the moneyed aristocracy as a partner at Goldman Sachs.
He and his wife, former Times journalist Rachel Kelly, host an annual Christmas drinks in Lansdowne Crescent which is very much a fixture for Notting Hill grandees. Grigg made an unsuccessful bid to be a Tory MP.
2. David Cameron
Misdemeanours with cannabis aside, Cameron was clearly a surefooted operator at Eton, for by the time he arrived at Oxford he had the social connections to make joining the Bullingdon Club easy.
He still found time for work, though, getting a first in Philosophy, Politics and Economics before going on to work at the Conservative Research Department. Spells at the Treasury and Home Office, then seven years as communications head at Carlton TV. Elected MP for Witney in 2001, and became Tory leader in 2005.
3. Ralph Perry Robinson
A former child actor, he had a walkon part in the 1984 film Another Country, that study of public school homosexuality and betrayal.
At Oxford he once paraded round Oriel quad dressed as a monk and calling for virgins to be sacrificed. A former pupil of the Prince of Wales Institute of Architecture, he was recruited by Richard Rogers to help him design a virtual reality centre in Japan. He now lives in a village near Salisbury, Wiltshire, where he makes furniture.
4. Ewen Fergusson
Generally thought of as the "quiet one" of the group, Fergusson also had a wild side and is thought to have been responsible for a notorious Bullingdon incident in which a plant pot was thrown through a restaurant window, resulting in six members spending a night in police cells.
The son of former rugby international turned British ambassador in Paris Sir Ewen Fergusson, Ewen Junior - Rugby and Oriel - is now a partner in the banking and finance section of City law firm Herbert Smith.
5. Matthew Benson
Born into proper money - his family were wealthy merchant bankers - Benson spent three years working for Morgan Stanley before setting up a property consultancy.
Now a director of Rettie and Co, an Edinburgh-based property company, he married in 1997 Lady Lulu Douglas-Hamilton, ex-wife of Lord Patrick Douglas-Hamilton, at a ceremony which involved a ruined castle being rebuilt over three floors.
6. Sebastian James
Another Bullingdon blue blood, James is the son of Lord Northbourne, a major landowner from Kent. Something of an entrepreneur, his business ventures have included a DVD rental business, Silverscreen, and a dotcom business, ClassicForum, which was supposed to be an eBay for rare books.
7. Jonathan Ford
The president of the Bullingdon - a post to which Boris Johnson aspired, but never succeeded in attaining - the Westminster-educated Ford was elected to the post because "he had a mad genius about him".
After Oxford, where he read modern history, he had a spell in the City as a banker with Morgan Grenfell before going into financial journalism. He is now deputy editor of a financial website, and married to Susannah Herbert, literary editor of the Sunday Times.
8. Boris Johnson
He looked much the same then as he does now, albeit a trifle slimmer, and was regarded in much the same light: ludicrous, but with an ambition that is not to be underestimated. Beaten by Ford for the post of president of the Buller, he made up for it by becoming president of the Oxford Union.
Editor of the Spectator from 1999 to 2005, and MP for Henley since 2001, his chief occupations outside journalism and politics would seem to be amusing television quiz show audiences and being unfaithful to his wives (two, at the last count).
9. Harry Eastwood
Another old Etonian, after Oxford Eastwood worked in corporate finance at Storehouse, the retail group. Later tried his hand at setting up his own business, co-founding a firm called Filmbox which aimed to operate vending machines for people to rent videos from. They were persuasive enough to get backers to stump up £450,000, but the business was a failure before it even got off the ground. Is now commercial director for a company called Monkey.
Explore more:
- People:
- Evelyn Waugh,
- Boris Johnson,
- George Osborne,
- Alan Clark,
- David Cameron,
- David Dimbleby
- Places:
- Edinburgh,
- Oxford,
- Japan,
- United Kingdom
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Wednesday, 16 February 2011
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