Bufferdom

Sometime in the late autumn of 1977, I went to a book party that was held in the Rosebery Room of the House of Lords. Why I went I can’t think – the volume was some piece of unreadable bufferdom extruded by Lord Butler […].

Her predecessors, Stephen Tumim and David Ramsbotham, pillars of establishment bufferdom with impeccable social consciences, had enraged the Home Secretaries to whom they reported.

It would be tempting to see in Malcolm McLaren's final years the descent into amiable bufferdom of a once free spirit, and to conclude that the ---- Establishment always wins in the end.