BY BEN PENSANT

As both a northerner and a former student I know what it’s like to be the smartest person in the room and the only one to have been locked in the shed on his sixth birthday. While the first scenario would occur every time I returned home and listened to my Woodpecker-addled family’s inane chit-chat about buses, the latter memory would often surface during lively common-room debates on feminism, Palestinian solidarity or the best way to season a crepe pan.

While these are subjects close to my heart now, in the late ‘90s I was utterly out of my depth, once remarking that the Gaza situation could be solved if he just stopped getting pissed with Chris Evans. And as eager as I was to adapt, I’d inevitably end up preoccupied with pools coupons, Space Raiders and wondering if I could get away with setting fire to my parents’ house while they slept.

But that was then. My working-class days are long gone, as evidenced by the fact I now clearly know how to read and write. Luckily, I long ago realised the only way to turn the working-class into better people is to make them middle-class; to indoctrinate them into thinking like us, talking like us, taking offence like us. Which is why Manchester University Student Union’s decision to appoint a ‘working-class liaison officer’ is such a great idea.

Because when bottom-feeding proles enter higher education they inevitably feel intimidated by people with bigger brains, nicer teeth and gayer parents. Hence this exciting new role which, as well as easing the transition from pie-eating degenerate to Camus-reading dandy, will also protect working-class students from ‘micro-aggressions’.

Micro-aggressions, of course, are casually thrown around every day in the gravy-stained world of the working-class. Unaware of the harm they cause, unthinking factory folk have been duped by the right-wing press into believing terms of endearment like ‘pet’, ‘sweet cheeks’ and ‘donkey dick’ are harmless. But words can maim, as proven by the recent disturbing video showing a female SJW reacting to the words ‘Hugh Mongous’ as if she’s been kicked in the tits. But while we outright condone micro-aggressions aimed at working-class students based on their race or gender, it’s perfectly legitimate and not micro-aggressive at all to smear them as knuckle-dragging racists one Sun headline away from setting fire to a mosque.

Luckily, the job criteria was simple: the successful applicant need merely ‘identify’ as working-class, leaving the door open for Princess Eugenie to apply just as long as she woke that day and decided she was a brickie called Keith. Because actual experience is no substitute for imagined empathy and it’d be a sad day if the student union discriminated against a plethora of capable candidates just because they’d never eaten a kebab, appeared on Jeremy Kyle or drowned one of their illegitimate children in a bath-tub.

Because giving the job to someone too working-class is asking for trouble. Far better to choose an applicant who admires, understands and fears them. Because we know what happens when the workers are handed too much influence: they get carried away and people die, as proven by Brexit, Donald Trump and the continued success of Mrs Brown’s Boys. And if 2016 taught us anything, it was that allowing the masses to think for themselves only leads to Islamophobia, spikes in hate crime and other heinous things that don’t exist.

Understandably, Manchester Uni SU have no plans to employ a middle-class liaison officer. Because why on earth would the son of a bank manager be intimidated by someone who calls dinner ‘tea’ and cooks it in a microwave? The middle-classes are effortlessly familiar with the ways of the less-sophisticated: the lower orders have been emptying our bins, cleaning our toilets and stealing our cars for years. No, it’s just the working-class who need a helping hand so they can leave uni as barely-functioning delicate flowers who take offence at the word ‘hello’ and think anyone who disagrees with them is a fascist.

Of course, in an ideal world they wouldn’t be at university in the first place. But if they will have crazy ideas about social climbing then so be it. We’re happy to be of help in moulding their corned-beef brains into something resembling a tolerant, liberal mind. Though it has to be said that most would be better off sticking to what they’re good at: eating kebabs, rioting at World Cups and doing the drab jobs that keep cities and economies functioning so Gary Lineker and co. can focus on the important stuff – censoring the press, arguing with people on Twitter and pretending to care about refugees. (Though not enough to put one up, obvs. There are plenty of council estates in Middlesbrough for that).

Because the BIG decisions are best left to those who fully understand them, like spoilt pop stars so learned they think Britain invented slavery. Trade tariffs, free movement, banning newspapers…it’s hard enough for those of us with degrees in Gender Studies to get our heads around these complex issues never mind heroin-addicted bin-men.

But it’s not about them; it’s about the virtue-rush of teaching those in need how to behave around people called Jasper. And few are more in need – of education, indoctrination and a bloody good wash – than the working-class. Despite the fact that more of them have good jobs and their own homes than at any point in history. Something which future PM Jeremy Corbyn will thankfully reverse to get them back into the council flats and dole queues where they belong. Because the suffering of the working-class is Jezza and co.’s lifeblood, as demonstrated by privately educated Labour MPs with privately educated children campaigning against private education. Because there’s nothing ideologically wrong with dumb, rich kids going to a good school – just poor, bright ones.

Still, with Jezza’s help, by the time my offspring go to university the hoi-polloi will have gotten over these flights of fancy and settled back into their traditional pastimes of robbing betting shops and drinking themselves to death. I mean, I’m all for diversity but come on – the last thing I want is a child of mine rubbing shoulders with people who watch Geordie Shore, eat Turkey Twizzlers and set fire to pensioners in Aldi.

Ben Pensant is a Country Squire Guest Writer. His writing is housed here.