I’d have a lot more time for the Tory foot in mouth approach, which is “only good humoured joshing” according to their supporters, if they were a little more adept at taking what they are happy to hand out.
But the sensitivity when they are portrayed as a bunch of chinless wonders who went straight from Eton up to Oxford and from there into a safe seat in the shires knows no bounds. ‘That doesn’t mean anything’, say Tory supporters. ‘Just because they are rich it doesn’t mean that they don’t understand the plight of the poor; just because they went to Eton it doesn’t mean they don’t understand what it is like to be at an inner city comprehensive’. But they can’t half dish it out.
I mean, I don’t hold with all this political correctness myself. I have no problem with the Prime Minister calling the Speaker a dwarf, as he apparently did for a cheap laugh, according to David Hughes (of the Telegraph). As a Scot I am not insulted in the least when as part of his speech he mocks Danny Alexander, his Chief Secretary for wearing a skirt. I frankly don’t give a thought to the fact that in discuss
ing Ian Gilmour’s career his summation is “shit happens” (certainly does).
I’m not bothered that one of his rather dubious new appointees to the House of Endless Treasure has shown what he thinks about poor people “breeding”. After all, I doubt very much if there are a large number of people anywhere who give a stuff what Howard Flight thinks about anyth
ing at all, much less anything to do with breeding!! Even Michael Howard took steps to stop him from standing as an MP. And if Old Young (ha ha, I actually didn’t mean that) thinks that we’ve all had a great recession and doesn’t think that 500,000 redundancies adds up to a hill of beans, fine. Again, he’s just not important enough to bother much about. (Isn’t it lucky for him, though, that his resigning in disgrace means that he can still collect three hundred and odd quid a day, but this time for doing sod all!!?)
But they really have to accept that if they can say insensitive things about people, so can we lesser beings about them.
So wise up you bunch of toffee nosed posh Bullingdon boys and learn to take it like men... of course I said that with love, and I mean it in the nicest possible w
ay.
Perhaps in the interests of fairness and balance it would be an apt time to point out that even the uber politically correct Harwoman thought herself above the rules when she called poor old Danny (he gets it from both sides... OK that’s enough!) a ginger rodent.
But the sensitivity when they are portrayed as a bunch of chinless wonders who went straight from Eton up to Oxford and from there into a safe seat in the shires knows no bounds. ‘That doesn’t mean anything’, say Tory supporters. ‘Just because they are rich it doesn’t mean that they don’t understand the plight of the poor; just because they went to Eton it doesn’t mean they don’t understand what it is like to be at an inner city comprehensive’. But they can’t half dish it out.
I mean, I don’t hold with all this political correctness myself. I have no problem with the Prime Minister calling the Speaker a dwarf, as he apparently did for a cheap laugh, according to David Hughes (of the Telegraph). As a Scot I am not insulted in the least when as part of his speech he mocks Danny Alexander, his Chief Secretary for wearing a skirt. I frankly don’t give a thought to the fact that in discuss
ing Ian Gilmour’s career his summation is “shit happens” (certainly does).I’m not bothered that one of his rather dubious new appointees to the House of Endless Treasure has shown what he thinks about poor people “breeding”. After all, I doubt very much if there are a large number of people anywhere who give a stuff what Howard Flight thinks about anyth
ing at all, much less anything to do with breeding!! Even Michael Howard took steps to stop him from standing as an MP. And if Old Young (ha ha, I actually didn’t mean that) thinks that we’ve all had a great recession and doesn’t think that 500,000 redundancies adds up to a hill of beans, fine. Again, he’s just not important enough to bother much about. (Isn’t it lucky for him, though, that his resigning in disgrace means that he can still collect three hundred and odd quid a day, but this time for doing sod all!!?)But they really have to accept that if they can say insensitive things about people, so can we lesser beings about them.
So wise up you bunch of toffee nosed posh Bullingdon boys and learn to take it like men... of course I said that with love, and I mean it in the nicest possible w
ay. Perhaps in the interests of fairness and balance it would be an apt time to point out that even the uber politically correct Harwoman thought herself above the rules when she called poor old Danny (he gets it from both sides... OK that’s enough!) a ginger rodent.
Politically incorrect pics: (1) Dave. I can see why he has his own photographer with his soft focus, and touch up facilities. He looks a bit rough and wrinkly and is that grey hair I see after only 6 months? (2) Howard is another one who could do with a face lift, now he’s got £300 a day coming in maybe he’ll at least get some botox. Too much breeding perhaps? (3) What untidy handwriting Howard. You’ll need to smarten up now you’re..bwa ha ha ...aristocracy... and thus must have (wait for it) BREEDING. (4) Ging: OK, I know it’s not a rodent. It was the best I could do. Wonder what he looks like in a skirt. (5) Well I’d say that Harry was looking drunk as a puggie here, but she’s only a girl and would probably cry.
In keeping with accepted political practice I now unreservedly apologise for any hurt I caused and withdraw my remarks completely.
If I remember rightly, Howard Flight was instantly deselected as a parliamentary candidate by Cameron for what he said at a private dinner party. Namely that government expenditure would have to be reduced, as the debt was rising out of control.
ReplyDeleteThis was at a time when Cameron was posing as the "heir to Blair" who would strew taxpayers' money around with just the same abandon. He called it "sharing the proceeds of growth"
Welfare junkies often do breed more freely than the productive working class of all income levels. It is a regrettable fact which was remarked upon by socialist reformers years ago. Some of them, like George Bernard Shaw, actually advocated gas chambers to solve the problem. I don't think the soon-to-be-noble Lord Flight is in that class.
I'm not sure I hold with the idea that the jokes and asides that permeate Tory discourse are just funny, un-PC remarks that should be taken in good humour. I don't, however, think that apologies are really in order, because it seems to absolve them. Rather, I think that letting the narrow-minded fools stick in their jobs is a much better idea, lets people really see what 'Tory' means rather than this soft-focus bullshit that people seem so entranced by.
ReplyDeleteThe discourse of the Tory party against Scotland, Ireland and Wales is not a joke, it's the extension of old-style imperialist ideals that refuse to die amongst not just the right-wing, but a broad swath of the dominant culture. As for the sentiments expressed by Flight, I don't think that the ideas were wrong, it's something that happens. What is wrong is his expression of it, rather than an engagement on either a political or theoretical level. I can say 'it's raining' all I want, but unless I get an umbrella I'm still an idiot.
As for criticisms by the left/anarchists against the Tories... I'd love to say that engaged discourse is preferable, but the fact is that the mainstream media and dominant culture is regulated by them, so most people aren't going to be exposed to anything other than 'violent students' 'attacking' their hired thugs.
Well actually it was 2005 that the then unaristocratic MR Flight risked his red blood by making comments about spending, and Mr Howard took pretty drastic action to get rid of him. He put up a bit of a fight but “Something of the Night” was a bit too smart for him and he had to stand down. His comments were that Michael Howard was lying about what the spending cuts would be, and that, if the Tories won they would discard all their promises and cut like mad. He didn’t know that his speech was being recorded. (So maybe he was a little naive. Trust no one in politics is a really good motto. You always have enemies and they are always out to get you. )
ReplyDeleteMicky was pretty damned angry about it... well, I suppose his own Deputy Chairman telling everyone that he was lying through his teeth was pretty wounding. What with Ms Widdecombe on his other flank suggesting that he was only part human, it’s no wonder the poor wee man was a bit sensitive.
Obviously old Howie is, or rather was, a mate of Dave’s because he was put on the A list of candidates for this election, but, would you ever believe it, none of the conservative Associations wanted him. Not a one!
Having failed to get him voted in... Dave, determined to get his own way, no matter what the little people say, simply ennobled him. (What’s another pig at the trough when there are over 700.)
Of course, in the interests of even-handedness, I’m sure that Labour has done exactly the same thing. If you can’t get elected, this mother of democracies will get you into parliament, if it means they have to drain away all your red blood (job for Michael Howard?) and fill you up with blue stuff.
So before he’s even got his wig and his ermine and dressed up like a fairy and become noble, there he is in Dave’s bad books for making the Tories look like they think the lower orders shouldn’t be allowed to breed except when another footman is required.
Just as well they can’t take it away from you once they gave it to you. Once it’s been in the papers you got £300+ a day for life, and you can say whatever you like. And if Dave doesn’t like it you can cross the floor or better still just sit in the bar. The 300 turns up anyways.
It seems that the noble aristocrat must once have been poor himself having taken his wife to stud on four occasions. Rich people don’t do that sort of thing. What with 14 bedrooms in the aristocratic home they probably rarely meet the wife... more likely to be the upstairs maid. Whereas the poor breed lots because they are crammed into little houses, in narrow beds and it’s bloody cold all winter and they don’t have an upstairs, never mind an upstairs maid.
Nah, as I said Mr Spalton sir, the likes of his graciousness can say what they like as long as they can take as good as they get.
"So wise up you bunch of toffee nosed posh Bullingdon boys and learn to take it like men... of course I said that with love, and I mean it in the nicest possible way"
ReplyDeleteOne foolish comment hardly represents an entire party. So drop the silly displays of forced offence -- it really is pathetic.
Oh, and again - what is with this blog and bashing people just because of their bsckgrounds. Why do you hold it against the Tory leadership that they were lucky to go to a good school? Rather the PM went to a crap one?
Well I suspect that they are, Lasaruszine, what passes for humour among the upper classes. How would I know?
ReplyDeleteI’m rather surprised at Dave, who had a severely disabled son, and yet who thinks that Dwarf jokes are funny. But maybe you can take the man out of the Bullingdon, but you can’t take the Bullingdon out of the man. Who knows?
The apologies are of course cosmetic. Mr Young still believes that there really was no recession and that most people did rather nicely out to it if there was, and he has a point. But you would have thought that Mr Young, at 78, might have known that you keep these things quiet. There are millions of people who have had a really horrible recession. They have lost their work, they have lost their pensions, and they have lost their houses and some their families. Mr Young doesn’t care about that, but he’s a politician, he’s supposed to PRETEND he cares.
He’s another one of these politicians who had to be foist upon us by being put into the anachronism, and now handy sidestep to democracy, that is the House of Peers, consisting of political appointees and very few real peers. (Still I love having joke at their expense about blue blood and piles (not the ones ordinary people have; stately ones!)
Old Howie isn’t in the least bit sorry he upset the chavs. He is, however, undoubtedly sorry that once again his great big mouth got him in the do do, and he doesn’t want the Tory whip taken away from him yet again. I mean once is careless....
Dave probably agrees with him. In a way, I do. I, of course, can say it and risk a few tut tuts. He’s a politician, and Dave is his boss, and Dave wants us to think that he’s nice... huh. The apologies (in both cases and thousands more) are worthless cosmetic exercises in political correctness and survival.
There’s certainly an argument that we are producing (or breeding) people for whom there are no jobs, and not producing (or breeding) enough of the people for the kind of jobs that we have in this country. This is why we have to import so much talent from abroad. Still short of putting bromide in the chav classes’ tea what can the likes of the Noble Lord do? Get wet I suspect, to use your analogy.
As for your last paragraph, I agree completely and have been saying so for a long time.
Great blog by the way. I’ve bookmarked it for future.
Oh Dean, you really didn't read what I was saying.
ReplyDeleteI don't care if they want to say nasty things about the working classes and lower middle classes, including me. But they need to be able to take it back. And you've just proved what I was saying. When someone says something nasty about them their supporters yelp.
And it's not ONE foolish comment, it's a parcel of them, and two "lords" having to make abject apologies in as many weeks. Dave calling the Speaker, who is supposed to have the respect of the whole house, a dwarf, because he is markedly shorter than his wife. And this joke emanated from some other minister in his cabinet (read the link).
Can you see that it’s Ok if I call the Speaker a dwarf, but probably not if the prime Minister calls him a dwarf. The next thing is that the Speaker will be calling the Prime Minister a goon... of course i don’t care what they all call each other, as long as order is maintained in Holyrood.
Folk at the top from whatever party look down on ordinary people a bit. It’s in the nature of the way that things are. And we don’t help it by bowing and scraping. But this lot are amateurs. They have to watch what they are saying because the public isn’t supposed to know that they think we are a bunch of whining ingrates who breed too much and whine when there’s a recession and when we have to wait in long queues... and when public services are rotten... But , as Jonesie would say, they don’t like it up ‘em. Cameron has already told us to stop talking about Howie. He wants it to go away. Tough.
http://www.davidosler.com/2010/11/lord-flight-keith-joseph-without-the-erudition/
ReplyDeleteIs worth a read.
tris...
ReplyDeleteI just checked one of your links ( Guido Fawkes) and he said that even CH4 , the most left wing broadcaster after the BBC, agreed with Flight. As did many more..
Flight was Right - CH4
Flight Was Right – Telegraph
Flight Was Right – Iain Dale
Flight Was Right – FT
Flight Was Right – Chris Dillow
Oh, and like with Sarah Palin, the BBC hate him ,so he must be getting something right and by default I'd have to support him.
ReplyDeleteMontague; it's hardly surprising that most broadcasters support Flight's ignorant comments, the traditional class divides have realigned and become something entirely different. Rather than working, middle and upper, we have 'lumpen,' middle and 'ruling.' The supposed lumpen are socially and economically manipulated into staying in a state of controlled decline, then the middle are held to ransom by the ruling class with the understanding that if they don't accept help they'll only devolve to the state of the lumpen. It's a sort of reverse Leninist position, really, and everyone falls for it. So really, citing MSM sources that support their benefactors proves nothing other than the private state's control of the media.
ReplyDeleteTris; thanks, I enjoy this blog too, adding to my blogroll :D
laz..
ReplyDeleteYes fair point.
But withdrawing child benefit from the middle class is a dangerous move by the state. Getting taxed until their pips squeak was almost bearable if they had a stake in society. Removing the pitiful amount that child benefit would have cost might make them wake up and realsise they're getting shafted just as much as the 'working' class at the bottom.
My default position is always opposite what the BBC think until I've read all the blogs / newspaper articles etc.
Hmmm Monty. I've said that there is an argument that says that, with very few jobs available for the less intellectually gifted, it would be handy if the people who might (and i repeat "might") produce more intellectually ungifted offspring to stop doing so.
ReplyDeleteBut that's Hitlerian, and it would seem pointless to fight wars against that kind of thing and then adopt it oneself.
Perhaps the most sensible idea would be for no one at all to get any subsidy to "breed". On the basis that children are an expensive addition to a household that most people probably want, we could simply say that it is a lifestyle choice to have then. If you can afford it, go ahead, rather like having a Lamborghini, a yacht or a holiday home in Mustique.
The trouble is that probably no one on a salary of less than about £40,000 would have any children...then, because they would all be middle class children whose parents would want them to go to university, who'd empty the bins...?
Alternatively we could say that everyone (even millionaires like the Cabinet) was allowed to have two children subsidised by the state. If they had any more, then they would be on their own.
So, the argument that I was making was that I have no problem with anyone saying what Young or Flint said. I don't have any problem with them saying the sort of thing that they undoubtedly say about oinks like me behind my back, as long as they can take back what they get.
I happen to think that someone like Young, who has been in politics for many years should have been bright enough to know that his boss would probably prefer that tactless and rude comments about ordinary people be kept to the most trustworthy of friends. I could have guessed that and I don't have Mr Young’s 60 odd years in politics. Sorry, that should probably be 60-odd years.
Likewise, having already been thrown out of the Tories for telling the oinks the truth, you'd think that Flint would have had the brains, just after being rehabilitated not to mentioned ennobled, to keep his big, fat, rich, posh mouth firmly shut. You see. I have no problems with insults.
I have default positions too btw. Mrs Dale's Diary is assumed to be a load of blethers until proven othewise... :)
Is there someone who doesn't hate Sister Sarah?
ReplyDeleteLOL @ Lazaruszine. I love your analysis.
ReplyDeleteThanks for adding us to you blogroll.
I think the middle classes do still have a stake in society Monty. They can surely still send their children to state schools, and many do. (Many more since the recession, what recession) started. They have NHS doctors, not the silly rich ones, but many nonetheless, and they use hospitals. Most of them don’t have sports facilities of their own, and even oinks use private gyms; they use parks, pools, they enjoy flower beds and parks, their streets are swept, the country protected by an army, navy, air force. They enjoy cordial relations with the police to refer to them as Sir or Madam (you never know who is a friend of the chief constable). If their houses go on fire they can call the public fire brigade unless they are the Queen, who has her own. Talking of which they have the royals, and they are quite likely to be invited to a garden party, where they will get fed!
ReplyDeleteThey have embassies and wee Willie Hague running around at their behest being told what to do by Mrs Clinton; Vince Cable is off to Moscow now trying to get the companies which they own some business; the farms they own are subsidised; they can use the coast guard when their yachts go off course; first class trains are subsidized too, and many of them in London even have to use second class trains; museums and art galleries are subsidized.
Nah, they are not without any stake in society.
Of course they don’t use libraries and social work departments... or not so much at least. (Some of them do their best to get every last halfpenny worth out of the state.) And at least most of them, (Lords Archer and Invergowrie, Jonathan Aitkin and the likes), don’t cost too much to the prison service. Mind you, that may be because they tend to have contacts... So I guess you hav