Rich Hack Thrift Sermon Fails

Commenting on the dynamic of politics, the obscenely overpaid “names” among the ranks of our free and fearless press, those hacks and pundits and other clever people who talk loudly in restaurants are on reasonably solid ground. The problem comes when they have to try and relate to the anxieties of the 90% plus, for whom the world is less than excellent, and getting worse.

Alice Thomson

So it has been for one Alice Thomson of the Murdoch Times, whose brutal verdict on the shortcomings of former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was on the mark, but who has more recently failed to understand what life is like outside the bubble. The signs were not good at the end of last month when she talked about making ends meet.

“‘Hustling’ will define hoe we live in future” read the headline, sparking brief memories of the BBC series about a group of con artists. Maybe she’s talking about grifting? Maybe not: “hustling may just be the future - jiggling careers, making a bit of money on the side in the gig economy, finding ways of being entrepreneurial, selling old stuff on eBay, renting out rooms, hiring out your car or bike to neighbours, pooling resources and haggling”. Hmmm.

Mic Wright was less than impressed with Ms Thomson’s schtick, noting “it mentions Andrew Tate’s ‘Hustler’s University’ without explicitly calling it what it is - a pyramid scheme”. So it should have come as no surprise when the same author gave her making-ends-meet ideas a Royal dimension.

“The Queen’s 1950s frugality is key to our future … As the cost of living crisis bites, we’ll need to learn the satisfaction of thrift and recycling over endless consumer binges” is the suitably patronising headline, suggesting that some in the Baby Shard bunker may not understand that many of the hard-working people they pretend to champion are doing all of that already.

But do go on. “The Royal Yacht Britannia could never be called a superyacht, with its Formica surfaces, Teasmade and narrow single beds covered with thin blankets for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. There were no gold taps or submarines, just wicker baskets for the corgis, but the Queen said it was the one place where she could ‘truly relax’”. Ri-i-i-i-ght.

Chevithorne Barton

How can I put this? How would Billy Connolly have put it? “There’s going tae be some swearing … FUCK OFF!” There was scepticism from a range of voices, with James Doleman musing “Nothing says ‘frugal,’ quite like not having gold taps on your personal yacht”. Ash Sarkar enlarged on that one with “If you're struggling to keep up with the rising cost of everything, have you considered taking a leaf out of the late Queen's book and insisting your yacht come without gold taps?” How could Ms Thomson be so out of touch?

That question was answered by Louise Raw, who you can tell as she’s a doctor. Posting a photo of a bijou petite maison in the West of England, she added “Just for context, Alice Thomson lives in this late-Elizabethan Manor House, Chevithorne Barton, with 350 acre grounds … I’m sure we all appreciate her advice on ‘thrift and frugality’ IMMENSELY”.

During the run-up to the 2017 General Election, the right-leaning part of the press had their Oh What A Giveaway moment when they sneered at Labour’s proposal for higher taxes on those earning over £85,000 a year, asserting that such a sum did not put one in the top 5% of earners. The problem for that claim was that it did put them in the top 5%. And they had just admitted that many of them were indeed trousering wads of that size, and more.

More than five years later, the lesson has still not been learned. Sad, really.

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