Since time immemorial there has been evident social distinction between those who have, and those who have not. Nor is this a contrast that can be entirely eradicated, due to the intrinsic nature of society. Talent is not uniform in its distribution, any more than the environmental conditions which prevail over the course of any child's upbringing. Psychological advantage of one kind or another cannot be totally eliminated; but there is still a great deal that can be done to ensure that advantages cannot be bought, so as to enhance the idea that, on emerging from their years of education, all young adults embark in a spirit of fair competition for the attainment of life's prizes.

The initial point of concern is that funds from the Inland Revenue should not be used to subsidise any system for private education, apart from those schools which are recognised as special cases necessary for rectifying the balance in privilege for some disadvantaged minority. I have here in mind the concept of special schools for recent immigrants, or for the disabled. As a general rule however, if a minority group (whether social, ethnic or religious) should wish for their children to be schooled separately from those who are being educated under the comprehensive system, then they should be required to pay for it without any subsidy from state grants. And if many of our private schools find that they need to close down as a result of these measures, the reply is that they could still expect to be welcomed within the comprehensive fold, provided that their establishments had been kept in good order.

The concept of a fair society does certainly entail the idea that unearned privilege should be eliminated from it: not only that which is exemplified by the purchase of special educational facilities by wealthy parents, but also by the exercise of political power by hereditary right. If Britain is to maintain a bicameral system, then its hereditary basis should certainly be removed. (A regional basis might form one of the possible alternatives, while that still leaves open to debate the manner in which it should be appointed.) By advocating that it must be reformed however, I shall still be taking up my seat; but this is quite simply because I do not intend to exercise what would amount to a unilateral disarmament. It is in the best interest of reformists that I exercise the unearned political power that I find in my hands.

The question then turns to what I might foresee as the future for the British (or any other) aristocracy, or indeed for the Monarchy itself. I do naturally predict the removal of all political power from these institutions. If a role exists for them in the future, it is more liable to be concerned with the pageantry of tourism; for it will remain in the public interest that tourists should flock to our shores, to attend spectacular royal events, and to visit our stately homes still populated by the individual families, proudly exercising their own concepts of pageantry within a long-established tradition of heredity. There is no reason to eliminate such behaviour, so long as the idea of their political privilege can be suppressed.

In the society of the future, we shall never attain (nor even wish to attain) equality. Such uniformity would be the death of individualism. People are not born equal, due to the diversity of their genetic codes. What we can aspire to attain however, is equality of opportunity; and this implies that our children should emerge from the same educational system, in open competition for life's prizes, where the influence of nepotism, the old boy network, or such `family' groups as are involved in freemasonry or the Mafia, have all been reduced into insignificance. Those who merit the top jobs will be enabled to rise to them by the excellence of their own performance in the field.

The meritocratic ideal will have been fulfilled when it is clear that no posts are being passed on from father to son, without his suitability for such appointment being established in free competition against alternative applicants. The meritocrat will doubtless exercise more political power than the average man, but this is acceptable in that he has earned it, and it is not transmissible to his progeny. The children will benefit from his excellence, not only from his wisdom perhaps, but also from the trappings of his wealth which were at his disposal during his lifetime. But there would need to be a tightening up on the rules governing bequeathed wealth, if there is to be any true state of meritocracy to be attained.