The Sunday Telegraph ran a story last weekend about the news that Tony Blair's son, Euan had landed a stint in DC. The item (which doesn't seem to be on-line) posed the question, "Is Euan incredibly bright? Or is his coveted internship in Washington a result of being incredibly well-connected?"
I don't know the answer to that, but I wonder if anyone on the editorial staff harboured similar thoughts about the paper's new op-ed columnist Anna Stothard, who - as Tim Worstall has already noted - just happens to be the daughter of the former Times editor, Peter Stothard. (I couldn't help smiling at the final line of her column about the Dreaming Spires: Oxford may have its mad rules, but as far as accommodation is concerned, it's a mad lottery - just like the outside world.) I also noticed that page four of the paper's Review section that day carried a piece by Daisy Waugh (daughter of Auberon) while page five plugged a new fine-arts company set up by John Mortimer's daughter, Rosie.
There are lots of other examples I could mention from across the world of journalism in general.
Everyone knows about media nepotism, but it's not a subject that's aired often outside the pages of Private Eye. We all know it happens, but it's considered bad form to dwell on it. I've been a journalist for more than twenty years [he said, puffing on his pipe] and I've never ceased to be amazed at how incestuous the London scene is - on the Left as well as the Right. What's even odder is that the people involved assume that it's quite natural. The idea that there's another world beyond NW1 or SW4 rarely occurs to them.
I was discussing this with a colleague recently. He's a fair bit younger than me, has risen high up the ladder (from a modest background) and has a sharper sense of London's social currents. Slightly to my surprise, he agreed with me about the claustrophobic atmosphere. Even more surprisingly, he thinks it's grown worse over the last decade. That's my impression too, only I'd assumed I was simply being over-sensitive. Which left us with one question: how do you raise the subject without appearing to have a chip on your shoulder? We couldn't think of a way. Perhaps it's just not possible.