The plight of the privately educated in Britain is now, apparently, akin to the plight of Jews under Adolf Hitler’s genocidal regime. Stare in bafflement all you like, but this was the claim, splashed on the front page of the Times on Saturday, of the head of Stowe School, a mediocre Buckinghamshire private school, who argued that questioning the disproportionate numbers of privately educated people in positions of power was akin to “the conspiratorial language of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and the language of “Hitler and his henchmen”. Do you have concerns about the privileged buying their children places at the top table? That those from less privileged backgrounds are drastically underrepresented in key British institutions? And think widening educational access is fundamentally a good thing? I’m sorry to report that you are a Nazi.

It is a story that future historians may regard as a fascinating insight into Britain’s crumbling social order. When those with wealth and power fear that their privilege is even mildly challenged, they invariably clothe themselves in the garbs of victimhood. The crux of the Times’ splash was the fear that Oxbridge was discriminating against the privately educated in favour of state school pupils, constituting “social engineering”. Let’s leave aside the fact that private education is the most striking example of social engineering in our society. The line of argument here is one I’m long familiar with – when I was at Oxford, I vividly recall a private school student claiming that state school alumni such as myself only got accepted because of preferential quotas.

Sadly, the Times opted to fuel the baseless insecurities of its disproportionately privileged readers rather than balancing absurd claims with facts: that state school students actually do better at university than their privately educated counterparts; that while only 7% of the nation’s children attend private schools, 41.8% of Oxford’s students hail from this background; and that less than 40% are comprehensively educated, compared with 90% of the wider population; or that Oxbridge recruits more students from eight private schools than nearly 3,000 state schools put together.

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That the Times appears to be taking up the cause of Britain’s apparently victimised private schools (a few weeks ago the newspaper printed a front page falsely claiming these institutions saved the taxpayer £20bn) is itself interesting. A recent editorial extolled their virtues, fearing that a Jeremy Corbyn-led government threatened them and warning them that he “would be wise to leave well alone”.

Britain’s privileged elites fear they are on the brink of a social revolution. “Rich prepare to flee Corbyn’s Britain as Tories desert PM”, screeched the front page of yesterday’s Sunday Times, warning of a “Corbygeddon” if these would-be refugees faced persecution of a more progressive tax system. My inbox is currently being bombarded with press releases with titles such as “Can investors Corbyn-proof their portfolio?”, and media outlets offer advice to the wealthy of “how to protect your cash from Corbyn”.

Those who fear that their privilege is being eroded have long claimed victimhood. As the adage goes: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” Male chauvinists angered by women’s rights froth at the mouth about “feminazis” while opponents of the struggles of black people or LGBTQ people for equality tend to portray these demands as infringements on the rights of straight white men.

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But as far as Britain’s elites are concerned, the shift from triumphalism to victimhood has only just begun – and it promises to be fascinating. After the rise of Thatcherism, the smashing of the trade unions, and the post-cold war sense that any alternative to free-market capitalism was permanently discredited, you can see why the wealthy felt drunk on the sense of eternal victory. For the well-heeled elites, the 90s and 00s were a non-stop party with no hangover: even after the financial crash, the fortunes of Britain’s 1,000 richest families more than doubled.

Migrants, refugees, Muslims, benefit claimants: these all proved to be the principal targets of fury in the aftermath of the crash. It is only relatively recently – on both sides of the Atlantic – that movements with political credibility have emerged to challenge elites intoxicated with triumphalism. They’re still at their party, the champagne is still flowing, but it feels like the barbarians are hammering at the doors and the bouncers can only hold them back for so long.

Britain’s social order is indeed tottering, and a correction is long overdue. But wait for the beneficiaries of the economic policies of the last generation to wail with the injustice of it all, because it’s barely even started.