'An excessive sense of entitlement" was what the mayor of London ascribed to those looting their way across our sceptred isle – but he could have been referring to himself. In the mid-to-late 80s, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson – not to mention David Cameron and his now chancellor George Osborne – were members of the notorious Bullingdon Club, the Oxford university "dining" clique that smashed their way through restaurant crockery, car windscreens and antique violins all over the city of knowledge.
Not unlike a certain section of today's youth, the "Bullers" have little regard for property. Prospective members often have their rooms trashed by their new-found friends, while the club has a reputation for ritualistic plate-smashing at unsuspecting country pubs. It has been banned from several establishments, while contemporary Bullers are said to chant, at all hours: "Buller, Buller, Buller! Buller, Buller, Buller! We are the famous Bullingdon Club, and we don't give a fuck!"
"This behaviour was criminal behaviour," said Johnson of the recent riots – but in the past his attitude to vandalism has been more nuanced. In his and Cameron's day, the Bullingdon was most notorious for heaving a weighty flowerpot through the window of a distinguished Oxford eaterie. Cameron, it is said, had already left the scene, but Johnson was so proud that for a time he claimed he was arrested for his part in these exploits. In fact, he simply hid in the shrubbery at the city's botanical gardens. Lucky there were no 24-hour magistrates' courts in those days.