This week’s Hero and Zero: John Redwood MP and Polly Toynbee (again).

Posted in Features. Written by Donal Blaney on September 14th, 2008

This week’s Hero is…

…the excellent John Redwood MP, for saying what we are all surely thinking about tax. John asks the question; “what do you get for the £10,000 that the government spends on each person per year?” Or, to put it another way, “what do you get for the £10,000 we each pay the government every year?”

“I don’t mind being asked to help pay for the neighbours children to go to school and I don’t begrudge my elderly neighbour a free knee op. I am not so sure about contributing to all the government’s wars, and become livid when I have to pay for regional government, an army of spin doctors, the rising number of civil servants, and the glossy brochure industry that is a substitute for government action. I dislike having to bail out the odd mortgage bank and railway company, and resent the ever expanding quango state regulating every feature of our lives, at our expense.”

Very sound Mr. Redwood, very sound. His blog must be a daily read.

This week’s Zero is….

….(for the second time) Polly Toynbee. Whereas last time she made it here for suggesting that children should not aspire to greatness, today she finds herself welcomed back after going a step too far with her views on class. I know what you’re thinking: “Did she have a go at the Toffs?” Well no, at least not that I’m aware of anyway. Toynbee’s class related nonsense was on display this week when she claimed that…

“…my most constant hate-swipes on Comment is Free and in rightwing political blogs is for being middle class.”

Hmm. Not sure about that one Polly. As Gudio astutely observes, you’re quite far from middle class. A villa in Tuscany, the London townhouse, descended from gentry and an income that puts her in the top 1% of earners. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with such success – but I do have a problem with Polly lecturing us about the evils of high earning executives (as she did on Radio 4 this week) whilst pretending that her ‘humble’ lifestyle is nice and middle class.