What connects Boris Johnson, Prince Andrew and Novak Djokovic?

ONE listens. One learns. Many years ago I sat having my lunch with monks at Pluscarden Abbey. The routine was simple. There was a prayer of thanksgiving, guests were served their food first, and one of the monks took to the lectern to read something “light”.

This category, in monastic terms, does not include the works of PG Wodehouse or the memoirs of Alan Partridge but, rather, the biography of a businessman or politician.

On this December day, the text was from the autobiography of a politician that was so self-serving that one suspected an imminent problem in the baggage area. His apologia for his life was proud, bombastic. At one point, the monks burst into laughter at one particularly outlandish attempt to deflect blame and invite praise.

Later, I asked one monk if the laughter was not cruel. “Only if it was made in ridicule,’ he said. “But what if the laughter was just us recognising that this man’s ego is a trait shared by all of us and can cause us similar problems?”

This memory came swiftly as I took my constitutional and reflected on the events of the week. They can best be summed up in a sort of Latin declension: jester, court jester, on-court jester.

Messrs Boris Johnson, Andrew Windsor and Novak Djokovic face an array of charges. But they share the common wellspring of privilege. This has infected their behaviour, whatever inquiries or civil actions finally discover.

Johnson lies and blames others.

The Duke of York meets grave allegations with an invitation to the Beeb to toddle to a local castle where he will clear it all up quickly, and Djokovic flits through a country without mentioning it on arrival in Australia where his visa application is incorrectly filled in.

There is so much to look at in all of this. While each case is different (and Prince Andrew denies any wrongdoing) they are linked by definite, unmistakable privilege. There it is: standing up, pointing to others and whining about the unfairness of life. The secretary didn’t tell me, my agent ticked the wrong box, my accuser has history of mental health issues, hasn’t she?

There was once a notion that statesmen and women and athletes should be an example to us all. It was always a daft sentiment. The drive and ambition of the man or woman who would be prime minister or the tennis player who would be Wimbledon champion are dangerous routes to follow. It involves a selfcentredness, a narrow focus, and a disregard for the blows sustained that leaves the aspirant bruised or fatally damaged.

Some survive. They are wiser for the trials. They whisper to those innocents unaware of the toll: “Don’t try this at home.”

But more are consumed by privilege. These unfortunates can be examples. The three leading players in the drama of Downing Street, Melbourne and a US court judgment have lived their lives expecting special treatment because of their status as an Eton schoolboy, a tennis prodigy and a member of royalty.

Doors open for them, difficulties are smoothed over, excuses are made for them. Until, one day, they are not.

This is when privilege becomes – perhaps for the first time – a difficulty rather than a right to be exerted, however casually, even unwittingly. Suddenly, one is not the jolly joker but one who shows disregard even contempt for others, possibly and allegedly to the extent of heinous crimes.

There is not anything to laugh at here but the reaction of the monks at Pluscarden may be instructive. They listened to the testimony of that selfaggrandising politician and saw that they shared his essential capacity to be driven by ego. They accepted that their ego did not lead them to invade Iraq. But it was there.

The sins of others always invite judgment and condign punishment. The jury remains out on Johnson, Djokovic and the Duke of York, though perhaps not for long. Their privilege may not protect them.

But what about me? What about my privilege? The lesson of that Pluscarden lunch is that the judgment of others should not preclude an investigation of oneself, indeed should invite it.

How have I handled my privilege in life? It is easy to remark that as a son of Possil electrician and a railwayman’s daughter from Shettleston that privilege was limited. However, it was there.

We were upwardly mobile in that once trendy phrase. From council tenement to bought house, from tight circumstances to considerable opportunity, from the aftermath of global war to sustained peace, at least for me…there is privilege in all of that.

And what about free and excellent education, lifetime employment, a health service that delivered me and has carried me for six decades and more, and a pension that is fit for purpose? All these are either under threat or simply gone for the generations who follow me.

Privilege can lead people to the most egregious of acts. It is most recognisable when it fuels the crimes of others. It is seen in the extravagant sins. But it can creep into the personal consciousness and be faced with the greatest reluctance.

It leads to a question: what precisely is my privilege and how can I use it to help rather than harm others?

This declaration of sanctimony is in itself a product of ego which would produce a chuckle in the Pluscarden monks. But it may be worth a go anyway.