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Some of the more readable political blogs are written by those commentators who may well have a political bias, but are also able to demonstrate a streak of independence, rather than simply parroting the party line. I give some examples here using the issue of social class which has been in the news a fair bit over the last week since Gordon Brown had a dig at Zac Goldsmith.

Tom Harris (New Labour) is so anxious to establish himself in the anti-class politics corner that he has taken the trouble to re-publish something from a couple of months ago on the subject... Eton Trifles. Of course, Tom isn't so much as saying class is irrelevant, as the social background of someone is irrelevant. And in one sense, of course, he is correct. It is ridiculous to suppose that a ten year old David Cameron or Tony Benn would stamp their feet and demand to be sent to a state school on the basis of their egalitarian principles. The sins of the fathers... and all that stuff.

Liam Murray (Conservative but semi-detached) also touches on the issue. Liam thinks that the use of 'low class-based attacks' are despicable and contemptible... but that the Labour attacks on the Inheritance Tax proposals are justified because they are an attack on a specific policy advocated by the Tories. Unlike most Tory commentators on the subject, Liam doesn't use Crewe and Nantwich as if it were irrefutable evidence that the public resent class politics. It does nothing of the sort, actually. Labour would have been trounced in Crewe and Nantwich whatever electoral strategy they had used.

James Graham (semi-detached Liberal Democrat) interestingly thinks the obsession with class in British politics is actually by the Conservatives. Whilst I'm not entirely convinced by his argument, I can agree wholeheartedly with at least the second part of this...

In short, the one party still obsessed with class in this country are the Conservatives. Frankly, it would be nice if there were a bit more class consciousness within the other two main parties.

And that is the nub of the issue. Not whether David Cameron is an Eton educated toff, with a Shadow Cabinet full of public school boys (and yes, still overwhelmingly, boys) but whether Conservative policies are aimed at ensuring the lads he went to school with enjoy all the privileges their class expect to receive.

The Tories over the weekend have made much of the fact that Kenneth Clarke went to the same school as Ed Balls, and Harriet Harman the same establishment as young Gideon Osborne. But what they are doing by saying that is reinforcing the point, that we are still, by and large, ruled by those that were born into the class that expects to inherit the earth. The fact that the Cabinet is also stuffed with these people from the same posh backgrounds just proves the point. It can be seen in the obsession of the Blairites with the trickle-down theory - make us richer, and that will give you some crumbs from the table. It is not so much about who people went to school with, as whose interests they rule on behalf of.

Class is an issue in British society, and only a fool would deny it. And whilst it is an issue in society it will be an issue in politics... and damned right too!