For the love of Zoomers and the tyranny of Private School parents (Battle Of Ideas Special)

Diary 19/10/25

All I ask is for your loyalty
My dear protégé
I’ll be your father figure
I drink that brown liquor
I can make deals with the devil because my dick’s bigger
This love is pure profit
Just step into my office

Monday 15th October

I was invited to Exeter University’s Women in Politics Society to speak to them about my ‘career’. I love speaking to students. Especially the type A keen beans that run for Student Union roles. I love the earnestness and effort. The young lady who invited me sent me the most polite, tailored email, and repeatedly followed up when said email got buried in my self-employed inbox of chaos. They made social media flyers with my photo and sent me a complete briefing document beforehand for what was essentially a meet and greet. In the briefing document, I could tell the student had done thorough research on my background, which was later confirmed to me when we went to the student bar and she excitedly told me they stock ‘Asahi’ (loyal subs know that’s my favourite beer).

When we saw a security guard approaching our post-event drinks, the girls whispered among themselves that the Guild (i.e. Student Union) did send security over in the end. I was endlessly entertained when they told me why. Apparently, initially they rejected the request to invite me to speak because of security concerns. They are wary of any media figure who’s been on GB News. The society officer had to send a very stern email to the union staff. She told them that I am a media personality who runs a (powerful) diary blog read by thousands, so chances are that unless she lied about this silly bureaucratic issue to stop a good cause (to support female politicos) would be published.

I am proud of them already; they don’t need a speech from me; they already know how to run a winning campaign (blackmail the paper pushers).

The girls brought me a copy of their student newspaper, and I made them sign their articles so that I can keep it as memorabilia and auction it off when they become famous. They must be ambitious, I warn them. They are my only hope for a comfortable retirement.

Tuesday 16th October

I went to a Tory’s book launch at a private members’ club. On my way there, I was worried I wouldn’t know anyone, and why must I always go to all the events I am invited to? Must I always act like a cancer cell going through osmosis (cancer=socialism, osmosis=assent British society). Of course, I once again underestimated how many Tories I know, and how many know me.

I walk in heels across Mayfair, Soho, Westminster and the Southbank and arrive at the News UK tower for my late-night media grift shift, full of beans- jelly beans.

Wednesday 15th October

I went for multiple bottles of wine with my London Greeks. First time I tried Riesling I didn’t like- sad.

Thursday 16th October

A media world friend took me with him to the Sumo finals at the Royal Albert Hall. A separate post on this is coming this week because this one is too long. I will post some videos on my Instagram too, for posterity.

Friday 17th October

I love carbs so much. They make me feel like a toddler on a sugar high.

Saturday 18th October

Battle of Ideas festival

The tyranny of Private School parents

I was invited to speak at the Battle of Ideas festival on a panel about the VAT on private schools. I have previously written on this and off the back of it invited on Times radio to speak on it several times. The Spectator has also invited me to a debate at the Emmanuel centre on the same topic, next month. You can buy a ticket on the link.

It’s a topic that gets insane coverage given how few pupils it affects. Only 6-7% of pupils go to private schools. Articles in the Telegraph about families making upwards of 100k a year do not make people feel more sympathy for them, because for most families, this is an incredibly enviable income.

It is interesting how hysterical the response is to scrapping a tax exemption for organisations that 100% act like businesses. The panel and audience kept on talking about the government taking away their right to pick their child’s education. If you heard them out of context, you would think the government banned private schools, or schools full stop. Nobody is saying our right to be clean is threatened by charging VAT on shampoo, or our right to dignity is denied because of VAT on clothes. From 2014 to 2024, private schools have raised their fees by 24%, which far exceeds inflation. Yet enrolment has remained stable, because most people struggling to make the increased price hike receive help from family, e.g. from boomer grandparents with triple locked pensions and winter fuel allowance they don’t need. Most can afford a lot higher fees, which is why the fees keep on rising. Just 4% of private school students are on a bursary that covers 50% or more of their fees.

Yet I had to listen to an hour of upper-middle-class people terrified of downward mobility, making them receive the treatment they always tried to convince us was amazingly generous for the rest of us. That’s only the case if you believe that everyone’s remuneration and inheritance are directly linked either to their intrinsic talent and hard work or the utility they provide for society.

If tomorrow Elon Musk disappeared, whose life would get worse? And indeed, how many lives would be better? But if all social workers disappeared tomorrow, the whole world would stop. Musk is being paid a million times more than a social worker, despite the fact that if social workers did not exist, the society that so handsomely rewards him (most generously through government subsidies) would not exist. Of course, we should reward scientific brilliance. Fritz Haber discovered the Haber process, which led to large-scale fertilisers now used to support food production for half the world’s population. Must the reward for someone like that be in resources that are needed more elsewhere? Isn’t society’s reverence and the satisfaction of saving others enough?

A beautiful, well-dressed couple in their late 30s (probably early 40s, but because they are well off, they look younger) was eying me intensely as I was gesticulating and spitting on the panel. The woman looked stoic, the man looked livid, huffing and puffing every time I said rich people are not thousands of times more worthy of resources than those born poor, especially when I put Musk’s (hallowed be thy) name in my mouth.

The gentleman in the white shirt, I said, pointing to the livid banker, is saying we should abolish the Education Department because it is not the state’s responsibility to educate people. I say, why stop there? Let’s abolish government completely, leave our roads, trains, hospitals, army and borders to the mercy of God and billionaires. Let the market decide what we put in our food, how we clean our water, or indeed if our houses receive any at all. What could possibly go wrong? Do we have any evidence that illiterate or ignorant voters ever do anything stupid, like vote in populist charlatans, or not vote at all? Has the market ever failed us? What concern could free-thinking people possibly have about abolishing healthcare for anyone who can’t pay for it? What could go wrong if suddenly we had millions of unvaxxed, unwashed adults released into our society who cannot read or write? The Baroness, speaking on the panel with me, said what was on the banker’s mind: Elon Musk is a lot more important because he will take us to Mars and save all of humanity.

The hypocrisy is nauseating. Where was the campaign against profiteering when the prices of private schools were rising above inflation? Where are the furious letters telling your school’s headmaster that kids don’t need more than one swimming pool and tennis court to achieve their full intellectual potential?

The argument, of course, is that implementing this incredibly effective, progressive wealth tax (which is what tax on private schools is), we are hurting middle-class parents who could just about pay the fees, whereas the very rich are not impacted at all. People are delusional about how rich they are. Middle-class people can no longer afford private schools. We are probably talking about an incredibly low number of middle-class people who scrape and save to do that. I have every sympathy for them, I genuinely do. I do not think ill of people who want the best for their kids if they believe private school is it. I think it’s commendable and honourable. But I asked my right-wing audience this: How many of you were as livid when the government suggested we should cut PIP benefit payments? The cut suggested was a blanket cut that would apply to all disabled people, not just the less dependent ones. This means there would be some people who would face genuine hardship, in the same way, there would be some parents who would have to send their children to state schools. How much space and how much rage did our national papers, The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Sun, spend highlighting the plight of those who would have been affected? The right-wing line was that most PIP recipients don’t need it, or don’t deserve it, like the left-wing line is that most private school parents can afford it, right? What of people like Mark:

“I claim universal credit and Pip. Without Pip I would become homeless. Is this appropriate for a 62-year-old who has paid taxes for over 40 years and has a body now disfigured by working on building sites? I had to wait over 18 months to receive Pip and go through hell with the DWP, which refused countless times to accept I had a long-term disability. I am now expected to find appropriate employment when I’m unable to, and will end up having to accept a low-paid, unskilled job. If I don’t, all my benefits will be stopped.”

It is suggested that the British private school system instils shame in its graduates. I think it doesn’t instil nearly enough.

Sunday 19th Oct

For the love of zoomers

Let’s call him Chad. He is 20 years old and is also speaking at the conference, the Battle of Ideas. He is like a young version of Chris Williamson but focuses on politics rather than self-help. We have some things in common. (for example, we are both heterosexual).

I go to his panel for moral support. He doesn’t need it but will get it regardless, like a fat Greek son being served his third breakfast.

It’s on the political gender divide. He says we have demonised traditional masculine behaviour, so now guys like him can’t approach women even politely because they could be #MeTooed.

Nobody is going to complain if **you** hit on them, I text him from the first row.

We leave the conference hall to get some fresh air and continue discussing online dating culture and boys and girls, bees and flowers, etc.

“Shirtless photos of six packs are men’s idea of a thirst trap, but women don’t care”,

I confirm our kryptonite is photos of men with babies.

Mine, I think, is girls reading smart books. I chuckle. He is doing the male feminist scoring by sharing feminist reels on Instagram memes. I ask him what a smart book is by him.

Sapiens, he responds.

Could be worse. Could’ve said The Alchemist..

We go to a steak restaurant, because he is on a cutting diet. I am on a fattening diet and my clothes don’t fit, but he says he likes Latinas, which I take as a backhanded way to confirm my calorie intake is high enough. He needs to get ripped now, while still young, to milk potential sponsorships for his podcast. I am a big fan of using good looks for media careers so encourage him. I wouldn’t have to work so hard if I were prettier. I tell him all of my discovery page on Instagram is Gen Z soft porn only fans models. I hope he gets recruited into a TikTok villa and tells me what happens in there. I imagine lots of drugs but zero sex.

I never miss dark woke networking events, but following the young Chadpup may be a better ROI than spending another night taking selfies with boomers who watch me on GBnews. He has moved to South Africa and spends a lot of time in LA, or anywhere in the world, where he can make good content. He is tax registered in Dubai, and I bully him for it.

He tells me he struggles finding girls who inspire him to build something with, even though he would love to. He wants a boss bitch who also wants to settle down (his words). He meets girls who are sweet and nice, but never ambitious or intelligent enough. He can tell he is more mature than they are, and I don’t question him. He has demonstrated his agency. He didn’t go to university, started working for a podcast that was big-ish when he was 16 and built its social media profile into the multi-millions with his little zoomer instincts. He is 20 and knows how to evade taxes. I can tell he is not impulsive or hedonistic, the scourge of talented men the world over. That will serve him well.

He weaves stories of older (but younger than me) girls he picked up at festivals and holidays. I stoically endure the humiliation ritual I brought upon myself. I can’t remember who started grooming who first, but I burst into laughter when he dropped the “and this is why I like dating older women” line.

this could be us but I am not a 50 year old Hollywood millionaire

Since I started hanging out (platonically, not a euphemism) with younger men a year ago, I have come to understand what older men see in younger women (apart from fertility). Sure, they are better looking if you like cute men, like I do, rather than hot men, like women of low tastes do. I like boyish boys (and in my eyes they remain boys forever), not manly men. I am high-T enough for both of us. But they are also more carefree, have no baggage. Their neuroses are sweet, not overburdening (till date 3 anyway). Gen Z are open-minded, despite the disastrous ‘far-right boys’ PR campaign. They are more in touch with their emotions than millennial men.

But on the darker side, I get a sinking feeling when I realise how I could impress or manipulate them if I wanted to. How I feel so less threatened than with a man my age or older. My ego is entirely protected. There is little they can do to hurt me. In my head, I go through the 30-year-old men I met in my early 20s and realise what a breath of fresh air I was for them, and how badly they could have hurt me in return. I tell Chad all that, and he maintains a poker face. Do you think you can manipulate me? he challenges me.

He complains about girls his age being very obvious with him. I listen sympathetically. Hoes these days have no class, aye, I say, slapping his ass.

At the first night’s party, girls his age line up to bat their eyelids at him. Unlike other occasions I have catalogued on this Substack, I do not intervene, nor mind. I am amused, proud even. Next to him, I am for once invisible. The girls and the gays battling for his attention don’t acknowledge me. A relief after a weekend of thanking people for watching/reading/noticing me. We are also just friends (queue howls of laughter).

At one point over the weekend, we were walking side by side, looking for a coffee shop to work, when the bells of Westminster Abbey started ringing. I was looking at my phone responding to a producer, and he said ‘This sound is so beautiful, it reminds me of looking over the church when I talk on the phone to my GIRLFRIEND”. At my advanced age, I am used to these routine provocations. Are you trolling me? I enquire. I wanted you to stop looking at your phone.

Later on, I will retaliate when he’s scrolling through my Instagram. I point to a guy who's taller and blonder than him. He’s the other 20-year-old, the first one, the pioneer. For a split second, my spider senses will pick up a drop of energy. Rookie mistake, won’t happen again.

We are working on our laptops in front of the window of a coffee shop, and people are passing by, glancing at us, laughing. Do you reckon they are thinking we are mother and son?? He refuses to participate in my fetish and puts his AirPods back in.

The end of the final drinks session finds me at my usual spot. Squatting by a plug, laptop on my lap, Cheshire cat smile stretched on my ageing face, away from the drunk crowd, typing this Substack. Outside, they are giving a speech about how brave they all are for being so free-thinking among an audience of people who share 99% of their worldview. I counted at least 5 TERF organisation stands. There were at least 3-4 events on immigration and patriotism every day, and every session I attended invariably had a guy stand up and say “the thing we are never allowed to talk about is ISLAM”.

Two boys walk in and, in Received Pronunciation, tell me they really enjoyed my contributions on the private schools panel. I assume they disagreed with my take. They ask me what I am working on and I tell them I am writing a diary, an interesting, funny or heartwarming story for every day of the week. And what’s on today’s menu? They ask. I’ve been hanging with a 20-year-old podcaster since yesterday, and he’s given me a lot of material. Their eyes widen in excitement, like what, all weekend? They leave just on time when Chad walks in. Damn, you missed them, I tell him. You could have busked in the glory of their assumptions. You seem a lot more pleased about it, to be honest, he observes. I wipe off the white face paint, leave the whig and red nose on my chair, and walk out. I go back to my cat, and he goes back to his girlfriend.