Sarah Vine Kitchen Hypocrisy

Earlier this week, Mil The Younger’s wife Justine gave an interview to the BBC in which she predicted that the tsunami of abuse aimed mainly at the leader of the opposition, but which also includes her as and when the right-leaning part of the Fourth Estate deems it necessary, would get worse. Obligingly proving her prediction correct has been Sarah “Vain” Vine, writing a formulaic attack piece for the Daily Mail.

Her husband still isn't getting Sam's husband's job, sorry

At first she sympathises with the Milibands: “Very rarely do I feel sorry for Ed Miliband, but seeing him standing there in his forlorn little kitchen, staring into the middle distance while sipping from a stripy blue-and-white mug, part of me wanted to rush home from work, sling some jolly painted crockery in a bag and head over there with a tin of home-made brownies”. I suspect they’ll pass on that, thanks.

It gets worse: “Surely that can’t really be Ed and Justine’s kitchen? All that lovely huge, fancy house, and that is where they do their cooking? I hope for their sake that it’s actually their utility room, and that some bossy spin doctor has shoved them in there to make their £2 million-plus townhouse in North London’s trendy Kentish Town look less fabulous and to bolster Ed’s man-o’-the-people image”. Do go on (as if she needs asking).

“If it’s true that the kitchen is the heart of the home, then this one — and possibly its owner, too — requires an urgent transplant. There’s nothing wrong with having a modest kitchen, of course. My own is ten years old, has several uninvited furry residents and a wooden worktop that would almost certainly not pass any health and safety inspection. The hob has many knobs missing, the oven smokes and the lighting strips under the kitchen units have long since been abandoned”. How terrible for her.

But Sarah wants readers to know that “it is much loved. It may be rickety, but it’s the hub of our house”. And I’m glad she appreciates it. Because a significant amount of its contents - we know this because of the MPs’ expenses scandal - were claimed out of taxpayer funds. Here’s what we nearly ended up footing the bill for.

A dishwasher for £454; a range cooker for £639; a fridge-freezer for £702; a Kenwood toaster for £19.99; eight coffee spoons and cake forks for £5.95 each. Her husband, Michael “Oiky” Gove, claimed for all of those between late 2005 and early 2006, which fits her assessment of it being “ten years old”. But then, after the expenses scandal blew up, “Oiky” was forced to pay back the cost of fettling up that house, all £7,000 of it.

So he tried to get away with billing us for Ms Vine’s “much loved” kitchen before he got caught bang to rights doing the “house flip”. Milliband, on the other hand, was named by the Telegraph as one of the “saints” of the expenses scandal. That means that Sarah Vine has no room to talk when it comes to the Milibands’ modest kitchen. She would be well advised following that family’s example.

And if her kitchen needs updating, pay for it herself. Like the rest of us have to.