Toby Young - Suburban Snob

Never one to hight his light under a bushel, the loathsome Toby Young saw an opportunity after last Thursday’s BBC Question Time to make headway on three fronts: one, take revenge on historian Simon Schama for dissing his Spectator pal Rod Liddle, two, advance his sadly distorted world view, and three, get the Mail On Sunday to enable him to  trouser More And Bigger Paycheques For Himself Personally Now.

More of that grown-up politics from Tobes

Tobes takes as the subject for his sermon that Schama had described Liddle as “suburban” - rather than a thug and bigot, which perhaps would have been less controversial. “Had Schama just dismissed someone’s views … because they were the sort of opinions you’d expect to hear on the 7.42 from Guildford?” he asked, showing the usual lack of research. There isn’t an 0742 from Guildford, Tobes.

But there was more: “According to this high priest of the liberal intelligentsia, Liddle didn’t deserve to be taken seriously because he was a resident of that lower middle-class hinterland”. Was being suburban so bad? Tobes thought not: “More than 80 per cent of the British population now live in areas that can be classified as suburban. That’s approximately 52 million people. Should we all be ashamed of ourselves?”

“Ourselves”, Tobes? Let’s see just how out of touch you are. “My wife and I moved to the suburbs from Central London eight years ago”. And how suburban is the Family Tobes? “We are now firmly embedded in the community. My wife is captain of the ladies’ second team at the tennis club”. Yes, the clown who praiseded White Van Man from Rochester thinks that suburban equals membership of the local tennis club.

A word in your shell-like, Tobes: White Van Man and his family have almost certainly never been anywhere near a tennis club. And it gets worse: “Carriage lights illuminate our gravel front drive at night”. Oh, how jolly that is! Tobes, most of those 52 million people don’t have anything more than on-street parking, or a parking place they created by concreting over the front garden. Most drives are long enough for perhaps two cars, tops.

Behold the champion of the 52 million

But on goes snobby Tobes: “I also helped set up the free school that my eldest child now attends … I was ridiculed on Any Questions by Polly Toynbee for going to such extraordinary lengths to secure a decent education for my children. Why didn’t I just send them to the local state school?” Polly was right: Tobes’ school managed a “good” from Ofsted - the same as all those schools in Ealing he sniffed at, and slagged off. And his school has already eaten up more than £20 million of taxpayer funds.

Then there is the hypocrisy: “Schama is the Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University in New York”. And where did Tobes spend five years of his allegedly working life? Er, New York. Tobes is so out of touch he seems blissfully unaware of it “Anyone know where the off switch is in a Maytag fridge freezer?” he asked recently, not appreciating that most of those suburban folks he defends aren’t in a position to shell out two grand on a fridge freezer. After all, they’re not snobs like him.

Toby Young - so suburban he’ll fly with EasyJet, but pay for Speedy Boarding and seats up front so he doesn’t have to mix with the Hoi Polloi. Some in the suburbs are clearly more equally suburban than others, eh Tobes? Pass the sick bag.