High life
The age of the common man
Taki
female friend of mine passing through Siena three weeks ago had an interesting tale to report. I will not name her because she's asked me not to, but I will put it this way: she is not exactly a right-winger. Stopping for dinner at a Sienese restaurant, she noticed Rupert and Robin Hambro presiding over a large table full of Brits. My friend, who is not British, was particularly impressed by the Hambro table's patience and politeness towards the staff. (I can picture it: 'Could you possibly be terribly kind and give me just a tiny bit more pomodoro sauce on the ravioli ... Oh, thank you ever so much . ..') Even more so when compared to two tables down, where an extremely rowdy bunch of Brits 'would have made me die with shame had I been English'.
The rowdy table was presided over by Neil Kinnock and, I presume, his wife, as my friend is not familiar with the Kinnock family album. What was awful were their manners: loud, laddish, as if the place belonged to them, and very, very arrogant. Having bored the rest of the diners with their noise and loutish behaviour, our intrepid man in Brussels led the gang out and into — yes, you guessed it — an enor- mous Mercedes limo with diplomatic EU plates that had waited outside for the duration.
What rankles, of course, is not that Kin- nock was loud and boorish, after all, he always was and always will be. It is the self- important impression that people like him — living off your taxes, thank God, not mine — give that they are entitled to lord it over the rest of us. Once upon a time, when only the Hambros of this world trav- elled abroad, Brits were seen by foreigners as impeccable gentlemen. The football hooligans did away with that impression in a jiffy, and now we have the age of the common man, and no one is more common than our man Neil.
Which brings me to the gravy train that's Brussels. Where I disagree with Lord Han- son's brilliant essay in last weekend's Sun- day Telegraph is in his agreement with Abe Lincoln that 'you cannot fool all of the people all of the time', Oh, yes, you can, dear James, just look at Romano Prodi, Tony Blair, Jack Straw and all the rest of Bill Clinton's disciples. Spin and more spin is their only ideology, and to hell with the people's wishes. Prodi was voted in by the Brussels elite, an election that is very similar to that of Al Capone, voted in by his gang as capo of the north side of Chicago. Accustomed to impunity, Prodi has pooh-poohed legitimate inquiries over illegitimate fees he was supposed to have received during the early Nineties. If one takes into account that Prodi was installed in order to clean up the Augean Stables that is Brussels, one realises the arrogance of the bureaucrats and of the Europhiles who govern us.
Mind you, the Tories deserve it. I am sure that by the time you read this, Ann Widdecombe's remarks about Blair's hypocrisy and cynicism will have been denounced by some wet. Labour is playing hardball, while the Tories are playing bad- minton. Widdecombe hit the nail right on the noggin. Blair — who has never read a book in his life — knows only one thing: spin. His supposed morality is like my sobriety, non-existent. Not only did he sell gongs to the low-lifers who had contributed to the Labour victory, he is cunning, ruth- less, treacherous and the most manipula- tive prime minister ever. His genius lies in retaining the loyalty even of people he has deceived.
One day 20 years from now someone will write a book about 'Why England Slept'. ft will be too late. The Heseltines, Clarkes, Blairs and Roy Jenkinses of this world will have succeeded in destroying England's identity and freedom. And they will have managed it without sweat. The English will have been too dumbed down by the Mur- doch papers, by television, football, fad- dishness, the common man, multi- culturalism and PC to fight back. As Derek Turner wrote in Right Now — a great mag, incidentally — . the global village is a Trojan horse . . . and the robber barons . . . want to remove all those irritating cul- tural barriers which interfere with their right to drive small companies out of business'.
Personally, Ken, Michael and Roy do not worry me. I have already left England for a country still outside the EU. And will move again if need be. The Blairs and Hezzas of this world are not good enough to tell rne what to do. The Duke of Buccleuch can write a very good letter to The Spectator in defence of hunting, but the only thing that will make a difference is civil disobedience. Let Straw try to jail every hunter, but every hunter needs to practise civil disobedience in order to preserve freedom. I for one will immediately return to England to hunt with the Beaufort if rural England refuses to lay down and play dead. And this time going to jail will be a pleasure and an honour.
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