Monday 13 October 2008

Now For The Good News

Not only are house prices coming down, but so are commodity prices. You know, food, clothes, fuel, fripperies like that. It's the end of the world. Isn't it?

No, of course not, you hysterical, pampered fools in politics and the media. It just means that people other than you and yours might be able to afford to live anywhere decent, and to live there decently, even well. And that is why you are so up in arms.

We are witnessing a repetition of the abuse heaped on Northern Rock savers "wandering around Northern towns with their tartan trolley-bags full of cash". Those people worked for a living, and some of them still do. In their tartan trolley-bags are your enormous debts, which have given you the lifestyle that you think is owed to you by the world in general and by the lower orders in particular.

It is high time that someone looked into just how much flashy Southern and/or middle-class credit is dependent on discreet Northern and/or working-class thrift. And, of course, gilded youth is only gilded at the expense of middle and old age. So why doesn't anyone ever point out this fact?

We are beginning to realise that there are two Britains: the Britain that borrows and the Britain that saves; the Britain that recoils in horror at any suggestion of sensible house or commodity prices, and the Britain that realises it might finally be about to enjoy the style of life that it deserves, and deserves a hell of a lot more than the recoilers do.

The latter pays for the former. So the former should show some respect.

2 comments:

  1. and as a professional writer/academic/politico which class do you fall into?

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  2. The Northern middle class. Like the Southern working class, the best of both.

    I was once billed to speak on this subject as being "in a class of his own".

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