Don’t quite know when it happened. But it seems one morning we woke up to find being privileged and privately educated undesirable and a bad thing.

A negative, weekly the opposition leader and his sidekicks make snide remarks and joke about over the dispatch box and on every given opportunity. And politicos site as a shortcoming and something to be ashamed of.

Where I came from, parents worked their fingers to the bone to educate their children in private schools. State schools pinch teachers from private faculties to improve and raise their own standards. And being privileged was something to admire and aspire for, not to be embarrassed by.

So what is happening to Britain and why is she going backwards?

Some people are born with wealth. They happen to be the few and the minority. However, most individuals worked hard, either directly or indirectly, to make and keep their wealth. If we look around us today, bar a few names, the majority of the UK’s rich are either hard workers themselves or descendants of parents and grandparents who worked relentlessly to make their fortunes.

Hard work and aspiration to succeed are at the heart of all productive, prosperous and happy societies. Privilege is the product of that hard work and it goes hand in hand with success. So why are we sneering at the fruits of dedicated hard work?

And why are we more and more accepting of luck over hard graft?

Many want and dream of success. But don’t want either to study or work for it. However, they are happy to win it on a game or a talent show or even the Lottery. They are happy to dream about something where the odds against them are in the hundreds of millions but not spend a day developing a dream of their own, where its rewards might be smaller yet attainable! We celebrate in awe and admiration our Lottery and X-Factor winners yet pay no attention to our inventors and entrepreneurs. Why is that?

And we do it not because we don’t want or like success but because we want to achieve it the easy way. Yet at the same time can’t help feeling resentful of those who either they or their ancestors worked hard to make their luck.

If we look around us, we will see that modern wealth does not come from land and property bestowed by kings and queens or acquired by wars. Most of today’s wealth comes from enterprising and working hard. And every time the left turns its nose and sneers at it, it sneers at innovation and its fruits. By so doing, they are indirectly killing aspiration in the younger generations.

Mocking wealth and success is not only tasteless and unBritish, it is economically dangerous. And the sooner lefties and their cronies understand that the better it is for our country and our economy.

What happened to us? We used to see success as a good thing; we encouraged, supported and applauded it – even socialists did not begrudge people their financial successes, they just said: ‘that’s not for me’

The right believed in enterprising and a smaller state where people are bigger than the government. Where individuals are trusted to know what’s best for them and the government’s job was to protect its citizens and help those who needed help by giving them a hand up. The left believed government knew best and decided how people should live their lives and gave handouts. But in spite of their ideological differences both celebrated and cheered achievements when and where ever they happened.

I appreciate times are hard, and believe we all need to pull together if we are to ride this tide. But also believe in personal responsibility and private charity, and in nudging those with deeper pockets to do more for their communities. That’s why I find the vulturous attitude towards some extremely disturbing, it is that mentality what created the divisions we see in our society today. That ‘us and them’ attitude inherited from 13 years of confused socialism is what gave birth to the entitlement mindset we saw burning and looting in London Streets last August.

And when politicians and clergymen make it their business to incite division who can we turn to for balance and sound guidance?

I might not sound ‘progressive’ but maybe it is time for some good old fashioned Keep Calm and Carry On. However, it is definitely time we stop demonizing success and those who succeed because success is not the enemy.