A curious notion struck me earlier, spawned by pre-election bickering over inheritance tax here in Britain, and recent political events Stateside…

With the current incumbent of the White House an African American, and one of the front-runners for the next leader of the most powerful nation on earth a woman, are sexism and racism really the chief barriers to equality these days, at least in the West?

Might nepotism be the elephant in the room, the real enemy of opportunity, neglected as we become focused on issues of race, gender and sexuality to an absurdly acute degree? I could use the current furore over a tweet from a bleach company which the usual suspects have branded racists, as if a bathroom product PR team would really deliberately advocate white supremacism as a marketing strategy. It’s mindless noise for the sake of it – and I could’ve picked a different stupid non-story from the net pretty much any day of the week – but is this moronic sanctimonious din distracting attention from the real story?

The female candidate I referred to above is of course Hillary Clinton, making this surely the first time we may have a husband and wife as presidents of the US. Considering America’s population, what in Hell are the odds of that? One of Hillary’s most vocal opponents is rival candidate Jeb Bush. If he wins he’ll be following in the footsteps of his brother and father. Again, remember how many fucking people there are in America, then contemplate some stats. This is nothing new of course – consider the legendary Kennedys – but is it getting worse?

Naturally we are hardly immune here in Blighty. The leadership of the Labour Party was effectively contested between two brothers. Inevitably, in Britain, class rears its ancient head, and another obvious, less hereditary establishment clique is Oxford University’s infamous Bullingdon Club. I don’t want to get judgemental on their riotous behaviour – I’m not here to play the puritan right now – just draw attention to how one tiny club contains so much of the future elite. Our prime minister, chancellor of the exchequer, and Mayor of London (and possible future prime minister) all members of this exclusive set. Again, considering the UK population, what are the odds?

You could argue that cliques are inevitable – that we all naturally employ and trust those we already know -but the extent to which the influential and powerful are all drawn from people who know each other from across the breakfast table seems to be reaching newly incestuous levels.

It isn’t confined to politics of course. Everything from music and acting, to architecture and advertising – every desirable career path – is now suffocating beneath a culture of nepotism. If you ever wonder how so many folk of little evident ability or talent keep cropping up on your screen, in the news, in positions of power, check out who their parents – or at most god parents – are. Way more often than not, you’ll recognise the name.

We sneer loftily at those less developed nations ruled by corrupt dynasties, royalty in name or effect, while our own ‘democracy’ drifts ever further into a sticky web gummed together by blood. People rail against our own royal family as if this were the worst, or even a significant example of unearnt power and privilege, yet the Windsors are surely among the most impotent, least pernicious of the family firms currently carving up our world. I suspect we are approaching an era that will make the dynastic tyrannies of our medieval forebears look egalitarian and meritocratic by comparison…