Sarah Vine Gina Miller Hypocrisy

The legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his obedient hackery at the Daily Mail have reacted to yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in the only way they know how: petulant tantrums and mean-spirited hatchet jobs. Thus it is that Daily Mail Comment, the authentic voice of the Vagina Monologue, proclaims that “This was not a good day for democracy”. The upholding of a democratically elected body’s supremacy. Yeah, right.

Sarah Vine ... unprincipled hypocrite

But this is as nothing when put alongside the attacks on Gina Miller, whose legal challenge against the Government’s attempt to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty using the Royal Prerogative and thereby sidelining Parliament led to High Court and then Supreme Court rulings which incurred Dacre’s displeasure. “The Daily Mail leads the way in Brexit bile” opined the Guardian’s Jane Martinson. She did not have to wait long for the proof.

First has come a sneering attack piece by Ruth Sunderland headlined “What's the truth about Gina Miller? A loss-making company. False claims about a law degree. And critics who say she's a shameless self-publicist”. And then, demonstrating the Dacre doggies’ total lack of self-awareness, comes a hit job from … Sarah Vine.

Mrs Michael “Oiky” Gove is the epitome of shameless self-publicity, and she has not disappointed. “Gina's no martyr: She's a pushy Posh Mum” she trills, not telling Mail readers that Sarah Vine is the archetypal pushy posh mum. But she does know how to smear her targets: “She is almost Mitford sisters-like in her ability to misunderstand and patronise ordinary citizens [Ooh Nazi reference!]. To her, only the hopelessly non-U would vote to leave the EU, as Nancy Mitford might have put it [and another!.

“She just doesn’t get it … She has no concept of what life is like for those who have not thrived under the yoke of Brussels” says someone who has no concept of what life is like for ordinary people (Ms Vine insists on driving everywhere in London. Not for her the slumming it on public transport. And you can forget the idea of cycling).

Gina Miller ... principled campaigner

But on she drones: “Nor, quite frankly, is she telling the truth when she claims her case is about ‘process, not politics’ … In fact, that statement confirms how little regard she has for the intelligence of Leave voters”. Sarah Vine can go one better than that - she has no regard for any voters, Leave, Remain or undecided. That’s how her husband shamelessly got to claim for a £7,000 kitchen for their London home.

How? “Oiky” had been “flipping” his main residence to take advantage of the then Parliamentary expenses régime. But he then had to pay the £7,000 back. And now his wife is lecturing Gina Miller, who hasn’t sponged off the taxpayer, on regard for voters.

And she’s not finished yet: “It’s hard to imagine a case that’s been more about politics than this one, about the attempt by those who see power and privilege as their entitlement to wrestle it back from those who have dared to exercise the only real power they have: a democratic vote”. Power and privilege, eh? Let’s just check that one out.

This is Sarah Vine recalling her wedding day: “Sixty or so of our good friends gamely schlepped to the South of France for a knees-up. There was George Osborne chatting to, of all people, feminist author Caitlin Moran, and Ed Vaizey, now the longest-serving-ever culture minister, delivering his brilliant best man speech … And Samantha Cameron, radiant and pregnant with her first child; she and David laughing on the coach back from the church”. Power and privilege as an entitlement? She’s got it.

And that’s before the six-figure salary she gets from the Mail for her weekly drivelfest. And the six-figure retainer paid to Gove by the Murdoch mafiosi, to whose ranks he has returned after Theresa May rightly dispensed with his services as a minister. And his MP’s salary. And the MP’s pension that will come later. And the expenses that he still claims.

Sarah Vine is the worst kind of stinking hypocrite. So no change there, then.