Day: October 14, 2020

Pressure to apologise for “white privilege” may leave white working-class boys even further “behind everyone else”, MPs have been warned.

Professor Matthew Goodwin, a politics professor at the University of Kent, told the Commons Education Select Committee yesterday that “over the last ten years our national conversation has become more consumed about other groups in society”.

White working-class boys, who are among the worst educational performers, are landed with “a status deficit” and made “to feel as though they are not being given as much recognition and esteem as others”, Goodwin said.

“If you go into these communities and try to tell them that they’re suffering from white privilege – it seems to me a completely nonsensical response to this problem,” he added.

“They are way behind everybody else, they’re falling through the cracks.”

Appearing alongside Goodwin, Professor Dianne Reay, emeritus professor of education at the University of Cambridge, said it was important to look at whether the intention of the education system was “to educate and empower the working-class children”.

The two academics’ remarks have been met with anger on social media. Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley, a history lecturer at the University of Southampton, tweeted that “‘white working class’ is not a useful category of analysis: it’s the ‘working class’ bit that leads to inequality, not the whiteness”.

Author Priyamvada Gopal also weighed in, tweeting that academics “who use the term ‘white working classes’ typically only care about the first word. They are not usually known for campaigning on matters of class and economic justice.”

But Goodwin mounted an online defence of his views following his committee appearance. In a post on Twitter, he wrote: “I just don’t think these kids – who are the least likely of all to progress – need another reason to feel bad about themselves.”

Never mind that 6pm dinner booking, Moët & Chandon has created a champagne hideaway that requires no reservation. The London Calling pop-up at Selfridges on Oxford Street is a ten-seater bar situated in the heart of the store’s Beauty Workshop on the ground floor. Serving high-brow snacks and all things Moët, the minimalist space riffs of the design of a London phone box, only infinitely more chic and futuristic looking.

The bar also doubles as an art exhibition, with the walls adorned with photographs that capture key “Moët moments” in the English capital from the turn of the last century through to the 1990s. These images include a 1967 snap of singer Lulu pouring a glass of bubbly to toast her first US hit single, and another showing a group of Royal Toastmasters celebrating the birth of Princess Anne’s first baby outside the city’s St Mary’s Hospital in 1977.

The pop-up bar’s patrons can also drink in an image shot by late US photographer and Magnum legend Burt Glinn that shows young socialites arriving at The Savoy Hotel on a Saturday night in 1957 (below). The photo captures the buzzy energy of London; an energy that, thanks to fun endeavours such as this new attraction at Selfridges, will slowly but surely come to the fore once again despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Small but perfectly formed, there is indeed much to learn at this bijou bar. For example, did you know that in 1893 Moët & Chandon became an official supplier to Queen Victoria? Or that the first recorded delivery of Moët & Chandon to England was 270 years ago, in 1750?

The drinks menu is an education in itself, featuring recipes from top London cocktail bars including Soho’s Disrepute: the members’ bar is represented by “Feline Fugitive”, a zingy mix of fruit-infused gin, lemon juice, mint, teapot bitters and Moët & Chandon Impérial champagne. Aspiring mixologists can book cocktail masterclasses as well, with two coming up; the first on 11 November with Andrei Marcu from London’s French cocktail house Coupette, and the second on 25 November with Andrei Pantiru from Disrepute.

Just a word to the wise for those planning a visit: Moët shouldn’t be uttered the French way – it’s actually pronounced Mo-wet with a hard T. Claude Moët, the founder of the House, was of Dutch origins, hence the accent on Moët.