Tuesday, 27 May 2008

A Little Light Crowing

Browsing the news media and the blogosphere, I see that there is now much use of the term "the overclass". Unless I am very much mistaken, that term first occurred in the mainstream media here, and was first ever used here.
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26 comments:

  1. Anonymous27 May 2008 at 18:02

    Yes, it seems to have been peculiarly American before you.

    It's been in the OED for a while but so are all sorts of things that are never used in this country. I can't find an example of it in a British publication before your First Post article.

    As you know, The First Post has a very small readership, but that readership includes everyone in Medialand.

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  2. Anonymous27 May 2008 at 18:04

    Someone seems to have altered the Wikipedia entry on this one to make it look like you are wrong. I think we know which camp they come from. The same sort of people don't credit Peter Hitchens with inventing the phrase "feral children." But he did.

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  3. Anonymous27 May 2008 at 18:07

    Yes, it was only ever American before you. It means something else there. Related, but different. You really did bring it to Britain to refer to the Cameron-Balls Class.

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  4. Anonymous27 May 2008 at 18:11

    "I think we know which camp they come from."

    Yes, Chris. The overclass. They lied Britain into war, so this is nothing.

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  5. Anonymous27 May 2008 at 18:38

    The recent British media use of the term "overclass" appears to have been prompted by Melanie Phillips, in this piece which has been picked up elsewhere. I have no idea where Melanie Phillips got the term from - but compelling evidence that she did not pick it up from you in 2007 is provided by the fact that she contributed a chapter entitled "What about the overclass?" to a Civitas pamphlet published in 2001.

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  6. David Lindsay27 May 2008 at 18:44

    Many thanks, Alan.

    Although other people's enthusiasm is also appreciated, including that of those whose contributions, touched as I was by them, I couldn't possibly have published. You know who you are.

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  7. Anonymous28 May 2008 at 16:21

    It doesn't count if a warmonger does it. They are outside the parameters of civilised debate.

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  8. Anonymous28 May 2008 at 16:23

    Anonymous, are you calling Melanie Phillips a warmonger?

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  9. David Lindsay28 May 2008 at 16:27

    Of course Melanie Phillips is a warmonger, and normally I would agree with Anonymous.

    But I can forgive Phillips an awful lot because of her views on education, drugs and other social matters, and because of her consequent scorn for all three New Labour parties.

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  10. Anonymous28 May 2008 at 16:27

    So her use of the term "overclass" in 2001 does count, then?

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  11. David Lindsay28 May 2008 at 16:29

    Since it's her, I suppose.

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  12. Anonymous28 May 2008 at 16:47

    You're going soft in your old age.

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  13. David Lindsay28 May 2008 at 16:49

    Don't you believe it.

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  14. Anonymous28 May 2008 at 17:12

    so if her term does count, does that mean that you didn't invent the term?

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  15. David Lindsay28 May 2008 at 17:15

    I never claimed to have "invented" it.

    Incidentally, it is interesting to see the You Know Who crowd lining up for Melanie Phillips. She doesn't even agree with them about the settlers on the West Bank, and her domestic policy views could not possibly be further from theirs.

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  16. Anonymous28 May 2008 at 18:32

    Are you going to sue Kammo for libel for saying you're a fraud?

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  17. David Lindsay28 May 2008 at 18:34

    Far too good for him. He'll get what's coming to him eventually. And it will be a hell of a lot worse than that.

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  18. Anonymous28 May 2008 at 18:40

    A fraud? David isn't the one who lied Britain into war.

    I'd rather be a fraud than a Tory voting trustafarian and hedge fund trader, never mind one who pretends to be on the Left.

    I'd rather be a fraud than someone who doesn't need to work and devotes his vast leisure time to trying to ruin the career of a journalist who dared give his lie-strewn book a bad review.

    I'd rather be a fraud than a mass murderer.

    And I'm not a fraud, thank God. Nor is David.

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  19. Anonymous28 May 2008 at 19:33

    Ok, lets rephrase. If Melanie Phillips first used the term in 2001, does that mean you weren't the "first ever to use it" on your blog, and neither was your use of the term in the First Post its "first occurence in the mainstream media"?

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  20. David Lindsay29 May 2008 at 16:16

    Yes, we had rather established that.

    So what?

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  21. Anonymous29 May 2008 at 16:42

    David, I think you could write a really interesting post about times when you've been wrong, as you were here. Everyone's been wrong in their time. What are your greatest mistakes?

    We know about this one. Are there others?

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  22. David Lindsay29 May 2008 at 16:45

    I will if you will, Jim.

    Although if you check how the thing was originally phrased, I'm not wrong here at all.

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  23. Anonymous29 May 2008 at 16:57

    "I will if you will, Jim."

    OK. Things I was wrong about:

    - The 2004 US election, where I thought Kerry would win.
    - I used to support the privatisation of the railways, but I don't now.
    - I expected the British People's Alliance to have more publicly declared candidates by now.
    - I didn't think Boris Johnson could possibly beat Ken Livingstone.
    - I used to believe in God, but I don't any more.

    Your turn.

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  24. David Lindsay29 May 2008 at 17:18

    "The 2004 US election, where I thought Kerry would win."

    Likewise.

    "I expected the British People's Alliance to have more publicly declared candidates by now."

    Why? We've always said that we'd only publish the list when it was complete.

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  25. Anonymous29 May 2008 at 19:08

    But you announced that Neil Clark was a candidate. Can you at least confirm that this is true?

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  26. David Lindsay30 May 2008 at 16:14

    Well, he hasn't told me that he's changed his mind. He was very keen to do Wantage, volunteered in fact. I assume that he's looking after things locally, quietly getting on with it.

    And we are really concentrating on the European Elections in a year's time, anyway. There is plenty of time to worry about a General Election a year after that.

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