The 'Newsnight' establishment

Sticking with last night's Newsnight, there was a section on "why the political establishment keeps getting it wrong". 

Kirsty Wark's introductory commentary was full of footage of past Tory PMs and the background to the following studio discussion featured images showing chaps with bowlers, top hats, bow ties and monocles - all doubtless representing Newsnight's idea of "the political establishment".

That's a very old-fashioned view of the establishment though, isn't it? Isn't today's establishment stuffed to the gills with a different breed - the left-liberal heirs to the 1960s/70s counter-culture (Blairites, Common Purpose alumni, etc), who move between many of the country's top institutions with staggering ease?

More typical of that idea of the present-day political establishment might be Kirsty Wark herself, given that she was 'infamously' personally close to several key figures in the Scottish Labour establishment (prior to its destruction by the SNP). 

Anyhow, be that as it may, the question of "why the political establishment keeps getting it wrong" was discussed with....

...well, before I tell you, who would you expect it to be discussed with? Someone from the Left who holds Newsnight's view of the establishment and someone from the Right who holds the view that the establishment is now full of the likes of Kirsty Wark perhaps?

Rather typically, however, the panel consisted of (and I kid you not!), a top Guardian journalist, a former Labour Party pollster and the head of the National Union of Students. 

What followed felt (inevitably) like a very 'new establishment' discussion.