Reading about the 'nail bomb' attack at St Edwards College in Liverpool, it occurs to me that no newspaper article goes by without mentioning that St Edwards is a private, fee-paying school; many of them even quote the rates. But why, though - what difference does that make? There doesn't appear to be a suggestion of some kind of revolutionary, class-fuelled protest; in which context I could moreso understand the reasoning for this seemingly superflous bit of information being crowbarred into every piece of copy filed on the subject:
The Guardian
BBC Website
The Telegraph
So, why? It strikes me we're supposed to more outraged by the prospect of something like this happening at one of our so-called 'posh' schools, to our so-called 'elite' than maybe if if it had happened at a Comprehensive. Journalists, in the main, are professional people and it's not unreasonable to categorise the trade as middle-class. And so, maybe, this one's just a little too close-to-home, and objectivity has collectively given way to a festival of synchronised Freudian slips.
I don't bring this up as an axe to grind into the heart of the middle-classes. Or at least I don't think I do. I went to that school for a while; I know those families, and have no problem with them. I do, however, have a problem with the national media sneakily insinuating that one child's safety is more valuable than anothers, purely on the basis of their parents' ability to afford to pay for private schooling.
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