Can Blair do it without the chattering classes?
September 2nd, 2004
Looking at the British political scene from a sunny French beach it’s clear that’s what’s changed in the past 2 years is that Blair’s adventure with George Bush has cost him the support of the chattering classes.
It was these groups’ abandonment of John Major and their enthusiastic embracing of New Labour that set the scene for the ‘97 landslide. The media honeymoon that continued until last year was driven by the widespread view amongst the chattering classes that Blair was a ”good thing”.
This has now been destroyed, probably for ever, by going to war without the UN’s sanction, the absence of WMDs, and the Hutton and Butler reports.
- The chattering classes have simply fallen out of love with Tony.
Thus the hottest ticket this autumn is for David Hare’s Iraq satire “Stuff Happens” at the National, the “impeach Blair” move threatens to evolve from a “silly season” filler to a running sore for Number 10, and the Observer and Indy will continue to stoke up rows llke the one with Greg Dyke.
The polls seem to show that Iraq is not the issue it was but it’s the chattering classes mood change that no longer gives the PM the beneflt of the doubt on other matters that could be most dangerous.
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Fortunately for Tony Blair the chattering classes are still “out of love” with the Tories and it’s a brave person who expresses pro-Michael Howard sentiments in polite company.
Taking all this into account we think that Labour will be 15 seats either way of a hung parliament which will be the outcome at 323 seats or less.
Selling Labour at 343 seats in the spread markets continues to look good value.
Guide to the Polls
Anthony Wells has produced an excellent, if lengthy, guide to opinion polling on his site. http:// anthonywells.typepad.com/ anthony_wells
Anybody betting on the basis of what the polls are showlng will find it very helpful.
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To paraphrase Stalin, \’How many marginal parliamentary divisions do the chattering classes have?\’ The chattering classes have had no time for the Tories probably since Suez (no time whatsoever for Thatcher) but it didn\’t stop them winning General Elections. The Tories need to win back the taxi drivers of Ilford and Finchley, Worcester Woman, Essex Man (some progress in the south-east of the county even last time round) instead of Guardian/Independent readers. While Iraq may have cost Labour the intellectual vote (as Suez did the Tories), there was very little enthusiasm for New Labour even before Iraq. I remember reading the New Statesman at the time of the last GE, and out all those surveyed, I remember two or three contributions at the most which were favourable to Labour (including Johann Hari\’s admirable demolition of the usual \’Blair\’s just a Tory\’ singsong with reference to policies such as SureStart and the Working Families\’ Tax Credit)
Then again, the desertion of Guardian/Independent readers, with the accompanying loss of seats such as Islington South, probably won\’t help Labour at the next GE.
It won\’t/wouldn\’t be the killer blow, though, to Labour\’s chances of winning the next GE. That would, instead, be the desertion of Worcester Woman and Essex Man (Basildon and Harlow).
The real danger for New Labour re. the Iraq War is that it has, unusually, united the chattering classes and Essex Man et al in opposition and scepticism. Usually, the chattering classes are against war (with a split on Kosovo), while Essex Man and Worcester Woman are in favour (the Falklands, the first Gulf War, Western resolve through cruise missile deployment in the Cold War). If the Tories have made headway on law and order, it\’s because Essex Man/Worcester Woman think David Blunkett is not right-wing enough (as opposed to the chattering classes, who think he\’s too right-wing). If Michael Howard was an unpopular Home Secretary, it was because of his presentational defects. Go down the pub or barber\’s in a marginal seat, and most people (including lifelong Labour voters) would agree with his slogan that \’prison works\’.
To elaborate on comment 1, if the chattering classes have so much power, why do politicians in both the main parties spend so much time wooing editors and proprietors of papers which (to quote Cherie Blair) the chattering classes wouldn\’t have in their house, let alone read? The Sun and the News of the World are the glittering prizes, not the Guardian or Independent.
Why was Blair wary of parliament voting to outlaw smacking? Because he\’s aware that, while it\’s a trendy cause beloved of the chattering classes, it would go down like a cup of cold sick with Essex Man and Worcester Woman.
Again, Euroscepticism is one of the ultimate thought crimes among the chattering classes (like flying the flag of St George during Euro 2004, it\’s guaranteed to make them label you a jingoistic xenophobe), yet Blair has shrewdly promised referenda on EMU and the European Constitution, so as to placate the Murdoch press and its readers.
Remember the 97 election, and the run up to it, in which Blair set out to offend the chattering classes with gestures such as saying he would press the nuclear button, writing of his love for the pound in the Sun, and Fritz the bulldog in the PEB?
Indeed Richard.
The chattering classes are important to other members of the chattering classes, but that\’s about it. I wouldn\’t even say they form a majority in Islington. If Labour lose Islington South it will be because of defections among the white working class council tenants rather than the \’Guardianista\’ vote.
Richard & Dan,
It\’s the BBC with all its outlets that is the big prize and this is the part of the media that is most open to the received opinion of the chattering classes. Why do you think Campbell invested so much political capital, including eventually his job, trying to bring them into line?
If Beeb bosses feel that the \’chattering classes\’ are anti-Blair then they will bolder. The whole critical way the Government is now reported is a direct consequence of the change of mood.
Producers & reporters feel empowered to be hostile - that is hugely dangerous
The same white-working class council tenants who, I assume, nearly voted in the ex-Labour MP, turned SDP MP and candidate, George Cunningham, in 83 and 87, when the sitting Labour MP, Chris Smith, was associated with the \’chattering classes\’ and \’loony left\’ himself.
I\’m pleased to note your implied disdain for the chattering class, Dan. I can\’t remember when I first realised that I hated the chattering classes. Either it was reading the increasingly deranged letters pages of the Guardian or Independent. Or maybe it was noting the admiration in such circles for Noam Chomsky, the man who sneered in disbelief at the survivors of Pol Pot\’s genocide, who still denies that genocide took place under the Khmer Rouge, and who complained (even after the killing fields had been discovered) that the \’positive side\’ of Khmer Rouge rule had been \’virtually edited out\’.
The barely disguised glee among the chattering classes at 9/11 (\’America had it coming\’, as one bien pensant clever fool sneered at the time on the Guardian letters page) probably didn\’t help, either.
Which columnist would you say, Dan, most exemplifies the wrong-headedness, self-importance, and pomposity of the chattering classes? Polly Toynbee? Steve Richards? Simon Jenkins?
I\’d say, Mike, that the reason Campbell went after the BBC was because he knew the BBC\’s scepticism re. the Iraq War marked - as I note in comment 1 - one of the rare occasions when the chattering class prejudice of the corporation chimed with the instincts of the public.
By contrast, the corporation\’s implicit (and quite often) explicit prejudices on issues such as European integration (my jaw dropped in disbelief when two anchors on News 24 argued glibly that the Single Currency was a good thing because it would mean less need to change currency on holiday, never mind all those people who couldn\’t afford a holiday when they\’d lost their jobs thanks to ERM membership) and penal policy (again, I remember Niall Dixon sneering about increasing prison numbers \’at a time when crime is falling\’ - it would never cross his mind that the increasing number of criminals locked up might be responsible for crime falling) have failed to change public opinion on the subject.
Generally, the BBC has less power over public opinion (or fails to reflect it) than Rupert Murdoch or his newspapers. Blunkett and Blair know this, and it\’s reflected in policy on Europe and home affairs.
Did you watch \”Question Time\”, a couple of days after 9/11, Richard? I was staggered by the sheer glee which so many audience members (and some panellists) displayed about the attack.
Your points about penal policy and Europe are well taken.
In terms of snivelling, self righteous, wrongheadedness - you can\’t go wrong with Polly Toynbee. I\’d also put Will Hutton and Melanie Phillips up there with her at number two and three.
I defected from the Guardian/Indy to the Telegraph about eight years ago and have never regretted it
As someone who likes to think of myself as a fully paid up member of the chattering classes I\’m a little upset by all the hostility
The only papers I buy are the Guardian, Observer & the Indy and I think that Big Brother is something from an Orwell novel.
And as for David Blunkett - he makes Howard\’s tenure at the Home Office seem like a period of liberal enlightenment
Dan, where would you put David Aronavich, he together with John Rentoul, Andrew Rawnsley and Jonathan Freedland are probably my favourite commentators, That said I’d say all of them could be classed as members of the “Chatterarti”…
Even in Islington South these members of the chattering classes do not make up a majority of voters and for Labour to lose the seat are large scale defection of white working class voters would have to happen, which is unlikely in a General Election that said I’d expect Chris Smith’s 6,000 vote majority to turn into a majority of around 2,000-4,000 for who ever is selected to succeed him (she has been selected but I have forgotten her name).
Islington North and Jeremy Corbyn will be fine sitting as he does on 60% of the vote from last time around, added to this Corbyn is perhaps one of the most radically leftwing MPs in the modern PLP, so that should help a little.
Overall any collapse in support for Blair and Labour, amongst Guardian “man and woman” will have very little effect outside of Islington, in one or two inner city constituencies with large “gentrified” areas Labour support may be reduced, but nothing major, In Durham City and Newcastle Central for example, both seats with huge Labour majorities which the Liberal Democrats claim to be targeting, the loss of the “Chattering classe”’s vote would have little impact.
Cheer up, Mike, there\’s always the Human Rights Act (the government has only opted out from parts of it) and Blunkett (mistakenly in my view) seeing tagging as an alternative to building more prisons. Great news for all those poor female joggers who can look forward to violent teenagers with tags stabbing them almost to death (as happened almost recently).
I\’m glad I didn\’t watch the post 9/11 QT, Sean. From all you\’ve said, and was said in the papers at the time (plus all the other episodes of QT I\’ve watched where the left-wing members of the audience seem taken from all the nutters who write in to the Independent and Guardian), it would have made my blood boil. I think they had a record number of complaints over that episode.
I do, on the other hand, disagree with Blunkett\’s plans to let juries know about defendant\’s previous convictions before they pass their verdict. Although it\’s galling for any juror who\’s acquitted someone (or voted to acquit, but ended up in the minority) to learn that the defendant has a record as long as their arm, I still believe that any defendant should be tried on the evidence of that case. I was very impressed by the way Letwin made that case to a retired policeman on an episode of QT.
Toynbee - absolutely. Her column last week responding to Michael Howard\’s attack on political correctness was an absolute classic. She swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker. As someone who\’s never learnt to drive, and uses public transport, I particularly liked her sneer at those concerned about rowdy teenagers on buses. There are rowdy teenagers, Polly, and - having been physically attacked by one for the almighty crime of reading a newspaper (the Guardian incidentally!) and watched elderly ladies being intimidated by teenagers using up to ten f words in every sentence, you don\’t have to be a Tory to be concerned by it (and note that such anti-social behaviour makes luring people out of their cars very unlikely).
For those of us on the centre-left disgusted by nonsenses such as councils re-naming Christmas Winterval (why? I\’m an atheist, Christmas doesn\’t \’offend\’ me) and forbidding their employees to ask for \’black coffee\’ (isn\’t the assumption that black is an intrinsically negative word truly racist in itself?) the best response to Michael Howard\’s speech is to say \’Yes, what started out as a desire to be pleasant and polite to people regardless of ethnicity and sexual preference has been hijacked by our more officious comrades, we\’re sick of their antics too\’ and go on to note examples of right-wing political correctness such as dismissing increased worker\’s rights as \’red tape\’ and \’burdens on business\’, condoning corporate excess as \’necessary incentives\’ (why not \’necessary incentives\’ for the workers too?) and how those on the authoritarian right such as Ann Widdecombe seem to think that any increase in rights for gay people will undermine the family (how? are civil unions for those in same sex relationships really going to make a load of straight blokes such as myself think \’Well, I was going to get engaged, married and have kids, but now the government\’s legislated for civil unions, I think I\’ll be gay instead\’).
Another example of right-wing political correctness is Digby Anderson\’s truly horrible tract \’All Oiks Now\’, in which he laments such supposed horrors as not being able to tell apart students from different social backgrounds, and the decline of a social apartheid in which \’we\’ went to the pub straight after work, and \’they\’ went to the pub after their evening meal.
Where the adherents of left-wing and right-wing PC converge is in their antagonism towards football supporters, and their attitude to accent. Football supporters? The adherents of right-wing PC label them as chavs and hooligans. The PC left hate them, labelling them all as racist, xenophobes (well they take pride in the Union flag - and worse still - the flag of St George) and - yes again - hooligigans. This is from people who, if they heard an ethnic group referred to with such disparaging overgeneralisations, would be horrified.
Accent? Well, the PC left ridicule the idea that working-class kids should be taught to speak grammatically (this idea amounts to \’fundamental hostility towards working-class speech\’) and the Daily Telegraph contains the odd vicious letter insisting that people have to speak plummily to speak grammatically (one such letter was indeed entitled \’Bring back plumminess\’ and argued that Geordie schoolchildren couldn\’t be understood). There was even a particularly silly piece by Theodore Dalrymple in the Spectator attacking some poor train station announcer for daring to rhyme the a in Newcastle with hassle. Newsflash, Theodore: some people with grammatical speech (even the northern variants of RP) pronounce their a\’s flat, while managing to pronounce their aitches and unstop their glottals. It\’s the mirror image of all these inverted snobs who hate Coldplay and Keane for coming from well-off backgrounds (or maybe it\’s the fact that they come from well-off backgrounds, but don\’t bother to pretend they didn\’t).
Not everyone on the right is in thrall to such right-wing PC, of course. Portillo and many other libertarian Conservatives would disagree with that apostle of right-wing PC, Melanie Philips (Craig Brown\’s imitation in Private Eye of her sour-faced \’Why oh why\’ pieces for the Mail are an absolute joy). I\’m intrigued by Dan\’s putting her in at no 3. Is this recognition that the right has its own chattering class? Charles Moore has been lampooned for his fogeyish manner, but even he parted company with D Anderson\’s misanthropic tract.
Hutton? Yes, I heard him speak at a conference on Stakeholder Capitalism in Sheffield back in 96, where he implicitly argued that the lack of stakeholder capitalism was responsible for the Dunblane massacre(!) I rarely agree with Prof Kenneth Minogue of the LSE, but the way in which he put Hutton on the ropes for that flawed argument almost had me cheering.
I think we should also give a mention, though, to Yasmin Alibaih-Brown. Apart from her column in the Independent, I remember a particularly supercilious piece she did for R4 on the handover of Hong Kong in which she talked about \’the overfed Patten daughters\’. Apart from the fact that Chris Patten\’s daughters looked rather nice, what exactly was the point of her making that personal insult? For me, that was the absolute left-wing mirror image of Richard Littlejohn calling Cherie Blair \’the wicked witch\’.
Re point 10, I think, Ben, that David Aaronovich is up for expulsion from the chattering class re his support for the Iraq war. He\’s also clashed with John Pilger (one of the few New Statesman columnists - if not, indeed, the only one - who\’s allowed not just a column, but also the privilege of using the letters page to attack any other columnist - ie Johann Hari - who disagrees with him!)
Freedland is probably also under suspicion for his centre-left pro-Americanism, displayed in \’Bring Home the Revolution\’ (arguing that democracy might include the rights of localities to vote for the death penalty? what horror that must have caused in the trendier parts of Islington!) He made a very strong (and convincing case) that many of Bush\’s policies and attitude went against the grain of US tradition. The general belief among the chattering class is that only a land as awful as the US could elect someone like Dubbya (indeed, you wouldn\’t know, from all the sneering over the 2000 election, that the postwar UK has twice elected governments with a minority of the popular vote in a two-horse race)
Richard - an embarrassment of riches to reply to! Before I start agreeing with you, as an exiled Brummie and onetime Labour activist in Birmingham local politics, I have to take issue with you over Birmingham\’s City Council\’s \”Winterval\”. Well, why not? There are plenty of cultures with different religious overlays on the ultimately pagan celebrations of th winter solstice. It doesn\’t have to be assumed that this stems out of an idea that non-Christians would be offended by Christmas celebrations - and I think you would agree with me in attacking that attitude. There is indeed a deeply racist assumption that all Muslims are raging fundamentalists behind any thought that celebrating Christmas would offend them. I went to a very multicultural school in Birmingham and I never once came across the idea from Muslim, Sikh or Hindu friends that Christian festivals were offensive to them. In fairness to the proponents of these ideas, they might have got them from reading Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. I opposed the Iraq war, but one suspects she wouldn\’t have cared less if the equivalent had happened to a non-Muslim country.
I was going to quote the Craig Brown/Melanie Phillips/\”Frankly, it makes you want to weep\” piece in response to an earlier piece. I count myself pro-Israel, and I still find her an extremist on the Middle East. I don\’t even expect to agree with her on anything else.
I hope you weren\’t injured for carrying the Guardian on a bus - I\’m sorry you had to suffer for such a delicious irony to arise. I\’d like to see the Toynbees of the country in a Matthew Parris-style house swap with the long suffering residents of sink estates. Every column she writes that isn\’t about crime seems to advocate pouring more money into public services with no consideration as to how institutional issues might pose problems that increased financing can\’t solve. I\’ve never met anyone working in the NHS or education that believes money is the primary issue.
Hutton is also a repetitive one-theme journalist. In many ways he irritates me more than the honest far left. The general tone seems to be \”I suppose we need businessmen to make money for the economy, but let\’s make sure they don\’t actually see any of that money\”. Who does he think owns large companies? Doesn\’t he have a pension fund?
As someone with pro-American (though not at all pro-Bush) instincts and admirer of the American constitution, I never cease to be amazed just how ignorant of American politics most people here who take it upon themselves to criticise the US are. I fully agree about the \”stolen election\” screed. Maths and logic will tell you that when the result of an election is very close to 50:50, absurd contingencies will play a major part.
Given the opinions I come across from a lot of my friends, I suppose I must be a member of the chattering classes, thoughh I hope not a fully paid up one.
Finally, for pure enjoyment this is my favourite Aaronovitch piece, on the basis of which he ought to be made the Brussels branch of Simon Hoggart Ltd:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/eu/comment/0,9236,1265691,00.html
Of interest given the recent discussions on the LibDem right:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3621340.stm
When David Laws loses his hair, he will look an awful lot like William Hague.
I think the reason for including Melanie Phillips in the list is her self righteousness - I think that\’s an essential part of what links all of these so-called \’commentators\’ regardless of their political views.
I incidentally saw her at Edinburgh Airport on Monday which was probably why she was in my conciousness - I normally try to block her out!
I completely agree about Craig Brown - his column is one of the things I look out for in the Telegraph/Eye or wherever - the man\’s a genius!
Fortunately, I wasn\’t injured for reading the Guardian. They (two teenagers, probably gluesniffers, they didn\’t say a word) just hit the paper (so I couldn\’t read it). Then, when I moved away, the girl seized the paper from my hands, screwed it into a ball, then threw it into my face. I don\’t know, maybe they couldn\’t read, and felt jealous….
I\’ll take your word for it re. the Winterval business. No such excuse, though, for the councils which have banned Hot Cross buns (the local Imams have said in the papers, \’What\’s wrong with these people? We\’ve tried to explain to them it really isn\’t a problem\’) and banned employees from asking for black coffee. Another example of PC I remember from university is a booklet of essay guidelines which told us not to use phrases such as \’blackleg\’ or \’black looks\’. Still, it might have been worse - I could have been at even more PC seats of learning, where the word \’history\’ is banned as \’sexist\’.
Maybe Hutton\’s a two-club golfer. His other theme is how we must join EMU and the European Constitution. As was said of a certain North London football club some years ago, \’Boring, boring Hutton\’.
Melanie Philips? Quite. My cousin lives in Israel, and she\’s married to an Israeli. His grandmother was killed in one of the concentration camps, but he supports a two-state solution.
I suppose Toynbee deserves some credit for earning the wrath of many Guardian readers for daring to argue that Blair has some positive achievements (such as SureStart).
As for the US, I\’m still angry about Jeb Bush\’s gerrymandering and the actions of the Guilty Five, but it was partly Gore\’s fault for letting Florida matter through running such a hopeless campaign (and, as Nader notes, no less than 10,000 Floridians who\’d voted for Clinton in 96 went over to Bush in 2000). It was the sneering about \’ho, ho, here\’s a country where one party wins less votes than the other but still wins\’ (not mentioning 1951 and February 74 over here) which annoyed me. As for fraud, well who\’s laughing now after the problems associated with Prescott\’s insistence on postal ballots in four areas? I\’m a Labour supporter, but I can see the problems that would arise through all-postal ballots (people being pressured by their partners or parents to vote a particular way - I know at least one person who was saved from such parental pressure by being able to vote at the polling station).
What really depresses me is the popularity over here of Michael Moore. I read his Stupid White Men and, apart from the grotesque apologies for Stalin\’s post-war takeover of Eastern Europe (which are made a nonsense of by the Katyn Massacre, not to mention the annexation of the three Baltic States, both of which happened before Germany invaded Russia), his NORAID like fatuities re. Northern Ireland struck me as ridiculous when I\’m one quarter southern Irish Catholic (and support the Ireland football squad with more fervour than the England one). Friends of mine in the Labour Party have read Stupid White Men and they\’ve said themselves that his take on Northern Ireland is so off the wall that they don\’t trust him on anything else. In fact, he annoys me just as much as Mark Steyn does (reading Moore and Steyn, I realise the meaning of that old saying that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit).
Any thoughts on Amanda Platell? I liked her appearance in that pilot of Situation Room on the BBC. Amanda whinges not to shoot the plane down (\’Minister, you should get out of your limousine more often\’) and not to close the underground tunnel, in the fictional scenario. Result? People (fictional) who were going to die anyway get killed, and a whole load more people (who wouldn\’t have died, had the plane been shot down outside London, and had the tunnel been closed to prevent flooding) get killed as well.
I don\’t half enjoy Private Eye\’s comments on her \’Gizzajob\’ column in the New Statesman. The BBC (very foolishly) gave her one on Situation Room, and she has another (\’View from the exercise bike\’) column in the Times (in which she charmingly shares such information as her ex-husband having had difficulties getting it up during their marriage), but three jobs obviously aren\’t enough for her.
Re point 14, it could be worse, Laws could end up sounding like Hague…
Absolutely re. Melanie Philips\’ self-righteousness. She reminds me of Harry Enfield\’s creation, Frank Doberman (\’Oi! Blair! No!\’) Steve Richards is terrible for that as well (particularly re. Europe). The \’boy wonder\’ Hari is often good, though he makes a fool of himself by referring to David Irving as David Irvine.
Peter Oborne savages William Hague in his Spectator column this week. Being too selfish, and not doing his duty for the party, is the charge. His fury at Hague\’s Pitt biography is particularly amusing (his scathing comments re. Hague\’s dictating said book made me laugh out loud).
Rawnsley and Watkins are probably my favourite columnists. I can\’t remember either of them ever getting self-righteous. Robert Harris was good as well, when he was at the Sunday Times and the DT (he used to be in on Tuesdays, but then left). I also miss the late Hugo Young.
I agree with Ben that there are hardly any Labour seats whose majorities are dependent on chattering class votes alone, however they have been an important part of the new Labour coalition.
In addition to Islington South I would add Cambridge, Cardiff Central & Hornsey & Wood Green to the list. However, the reality is that most of the seats the LibDems will win from Labour are not populated by the chatterati but by what John Major described as the \”hard-working classes\” on the council estates & terrace houses.
I\’d agree Bullseye, the same white working class voters who backed the Conservatives during the eighties (\”Thatcher’s Children\” if you will) will have far far more of an impact in the seats you mention, Cardiff Central, Hornsey & Wood Green and I\’d add Bristol West will all probably fall to the LibDems, Cambridge saw a massive squeeze on the Conservative vote last time added to this the Labour MP for Cambridge resigned over the war and is a good local MP by all accounts so that could help her…
But by the looks of it Cardiff, Bristol and Wood Green look like LibDem Pickups from Labour for sure as do the Tory seats of Taunton, Dorset West and Orpington.
Totally agree with you Richard re Moore and Steyn - two sides of the same coin. I quite enjoyed Bowling for Columbine (and parts of Stupid White Men), but found his cheap jibes against Dubya\’s sopposed illiteracy distateful and counter-productive. There are plenty of good ways of attacking him - however accusing him of being unable to read has to be one of the least credible.
I like Rawnsley and Harris too - Harris is back in the Telegraph (possibly just for the summer) by the way - Matthew Parris\’s is also usually entertaining. But I think the main problem with all these political commentators is that they never leave the Westminster bubble so never see real life. It probably explains why they are also so wrong so often.
It\’s interesting what you say re. the Westminster bubble. I often find overheard conversations in pubs and on the bus a good guide as to how parties will fare. Often it reflects the \’small print\’ in the opinion polls. The Tory deficit on economic competence, for example, was matched by a conversation I heard among some pensioners on the Co-op bus a year ago in which they slated Labour, but then added that things would be even worse if the Tories got back in, as there\’d be an economic crash.
Lots of good points Richard. I\’m a Conservative, but I wince when reading articles by some right-wing commentators displaying their snobbish contempt for the working classes.
I think that left-wing contempt for the working classes is worse though, for two reasons. First, it\’s based on self-righteous hatred, rather than ignorant prejudice, and second, the Labour party was established to advance the interest of the working classes, so it is a betrayal of their own people.
To go back to Richard\’s original question ‘How many marginal parliamentary divisions do the chattering classes have?’ the asnwer is obviously none. BUT they do make up a lot of Labour\’s foot-soldiery in certain areas, and Labour always has to get its vote out. Seats where there could be \”chattering class\” factor are Hornsey & Wood Green in London, where the Lib Dems have wholly replaced the Tories and the local MP is not well liked, Oxford East (we don\’t yet know why Andrew Smith quit, but I wouldn\’t be surprised if his local party machine is virtually fictional) and the Brighton seats (where the Lib Dems may well run a paper campaign and let the Greens see what they can do with the student vote, if the election is called in term time).