Lady Mary Louisa Toynbee, a Toynbee of course, and great-granddaughter of the Earl of Carlisle. She attended Badminton School as a gel, then trendy Holland Park School, having failed the Eleven Plus examination . She drifted into getting her own column ...as you do ...and was editor of Social s affairs for years at the BBC , like anyone else .Its a riches to riches story packed with hot gypisies .Today she has been on about class and I have been looking forward to it for ages.Today its here ! Before I introduce the national treasure, lets set the scene .
There is broad agreement that in order for the national Debt to stay about 60% we need to cut £150 billion from the annual spend. God knows how you do that .We certainly cannot tax our way out of this , we cannot , says the IFS , expect any additional revenue at all by taxing the richest who will simply re arrange their lives . We cannot retain frontline services . In the NHS only one in seven of its 1,400,000 are back room bods ,.We cannot rely on Darlings universally mocked predictions of growth that only appear remotely plausible while we are high on QE and borrowing . Best guess, IMF , inflation, unstable government strikes , dogs and cats living together ...its bad. Its fecking biblical bad
These are serious times and what better context for an article of Gilbert and Sullivan silliness from Queen Toynbee we are all drowning and she is worried about who has the best hat
Her defence of her self is a retreat in sanctimonious pontificating “Osborne and Harriet Harman (or me or me ! ) were both St Paul's pupils. ... she has spent her career trying to promote fairer life chances for those without her privileges ( like me ,like me ! ) , while Osborne .. bent on defending theirs."
And just for good measure she plays the gender card...
“the right attacks anyone on the left born well-heeled or privately educated as a hypocrite – especially women, especially Harriet Harman. Why? It seems on the whole a good thing to support a cause that is patently not self-interested.”
Those of us who recall the depthless chivalry shown to Margaret Thatcher by the BBC sponsored alternative ( to) comedians of then left will shed a tear ..be strong my brothers . She is talking out of her perfumed and aristocratic arse.
Firstly the saintly self sacrifice she claims to personify is actually suffered, not by her, but by middling people who cannot afford a bolt hole in Italy . In fact her championing of the “Poor” has done her career no end of good .
When she talks about attacking toffs she is deflecting the fact that it is ordinary people who will suffer from New Labours catatrophic misjudgement . People who work hard , people with families .
Look at her parrot like rehearsal of the IHT lie. She claims it is targeted at helping the rich. In fact it was the middling who saw New Labour , having taken everything but the house , planned to confiscate even that at death so people could not help their own children with their own money.
It is us who have had our pensions destroyed while the Public sector sails on , it is us that need help when we are bringing up children it is us who pay and pay and pay and us that she wants kept in our forlock tugguing place so she can go on pretending the world has two types of people . Aristocrats, like her, and paupers of whom she read at Badminton
There is no serious money to be got from the rich and whilst the activities of bankers are irritating ,the bill for Polly`s conscience will be paid by those who cannot emigrate do not have smart accountants , people struggling around Tescos looking for for BOGOFs .
5 comments:
"If politicians often come from private schools and well-heeled families, sadly that's not surprising. The 7% of people emerging from private schools dominate disproportionately in top universities, the bar, medicine, the City, journalism and any well-paid profession" (Polly Toynbee)
Presumably, Polly, you mean people like...
Joseph Toynbee, private consulting surgeon and pioneer in the field of otology, born in Waddington, Lincs in 1816. On the 1861 census, he's living at Beech House, a mansion at 18 Saville Row, St James's, Westminster
...with a whole tribe of servants:
A footman, Cook, Page, Housemaid, 2 nurses and a nursemaid?
Among his children was wealthy economic historian, author and hater of Capitalism, Arnold Toynbee:
And among Arnold's nephews was Polly's granddad, Arnold Joseph Toynbee, who said:
"one-half of the land in the United Kingdom is owned by 2512 persons"
What Arnold neglected to say,of course, was how many of his Toynbee family were among those 2512 wealthy landowners.
Or to mention that Arnold J and his servants lived in a mansion at 3 Melina Place, St John's Wood, Westminster - you know, where Kate Moss lives.
Educated at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford, Arnold J, Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History etc etc worked for the Intelligence department of the British Foreign Office during World War I, serving as a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
Just your ordinary, common or garden, working class family then.
Go back a little further in Polly's family tree and you'll surely not find a lot of "The 7% of people emerging from private schools to disproportionately dominate top universities, the bar, medicine, the City, journalism and any well-paid profession"
'Fraid so, Polly. Trace the Toynbees back to Lincs and London during the 18th and 19th centuries and you'll find them and their privately educated children living at a string of exclusive addresses.
They're largely: landowners, merchants, lawyers, wealthy farmers of 600 to 1000 acres, dear old Miss Toynbees living off substantial Trust funds (largely financed by land holdings and, dare I say it, rents?) builders, absentee landlords, publishers, even a sweat shop owner.
"That really is class war – the rich looting everyone else." (Polly Toynbee)
You said it, Polly!
Excellent Flo..(better than my boring olf rant )
She is such a hypocritical old trout.
And if you pointed that out she would be horrified.
The maddest of mad cows.
Your piece is excellent, newms, it inspired me to dig a bit further into la Toynbee's ultra privileged background.
But, didn't Littlejohn give Polly's hypocrisy the ultimate bitch slapping on Question Time?
"Do you think about global warming when you're flying to your villa in Italy, Poll?"
Giles Coren once mercilessly lampooned Toynbee's hypocrisy in the Times:
"Toynbee...trying to present Britain as a cartoonish, divided society to suit your own arrogant, dim-witted, outdated Weltanschauung."
One of the responses to Coren's article was particularly precious:
"My dad was a newsagent, I went to state school, I'm Asian, I work in the city and I earn loads of money. I do it so my parents and future children can have something close to the only kind of life Toynbee has ever known. Me explain my position? How about she explains her right to speak for the poor?" - Raj C, London
That is rather lovely Flo
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