Sunday, May 10, 2015

Life with Cameron: Charlotte Church is our new vanguard

Charlotte Church was out on the protests against the new Tory government on Saturday. The Tories, of course, were unimpressed:

But in response to Ms Church and the protesters, the Welsh Conservatives' leader [Andrew RT Davies] said: "It's champagne socialists standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

"At the end of the day, to denigrate the electorate, who has just spoken, within 48 hours of the election, is slightly unfortunate and unbecoming."
Champagne socialists. Is that the best you can, Mr Davies?

You and your party suggest that we should ensure that "hard working people" have their rights protected; that they have their choices respected.

And yet as soon as someone who has a few bob in their pocket says anything that suggests caring about others might be the right thing to do, suddenly we discover that this makes them "champagne socialists" and their right to comment has, magically, become nullified.

(It's unclear where the point comes that you stop being a champagne socialist and cross into the jealous underclass - perhaps somewhere around the living wage?)

Obviously, it's a cliche. But worse than a cliche, it's not even like champagne is that much of a luxury product anyway. And worse than being a tatty cliche, it's not even right. Because Church is actually marching in the streets with a placard, which isn't what a champagne socialist is supposed to behave.

Davies also seems to have missed the point that the Tories only won the support of 27% of the voters who turned out in Wales - it came second, and yet Wales now has a Tory government. To suggest that objecting to the runners-up sitting taking pole position is denigrating the electorate is a little odd.

But then if we thought the Tories understood humility, perhaps we wouldn't all be so bloody terrified about what's going to come next.


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