He tried - would you prefer those wealthy socialists dicked on the poor instead?
As per Caitlin Moran
The denouncing of champagne socialists always follows a strict format – mentioning the price of the house the champagne socialist lives in, their income/net worth, whether or not they went to public school, if their children do, and accompanying it with a picture of the champagne socialist either dressed up to the nines on a red carpet (how can they attend a movie premiere when the poor cannot attend a movie premiere!) or looking angry and shouting at a demonstration. (This person is crazed with socialism! Look at them snarl! Socialism is the ultimate Bitchy Resting Face! You will need Botox now, for sure!)
The demented logic seems to be as follows: that you cannot stand up for the poor unless you are poor yourself. That if you have managed to accrue any wealth and security, unless you have subsequently given away every penny of it to charities for the poor, you are a hypocrite to speak about the poor. Only the poor can speak about, and for, the poor. So, if you are a real socialist, you must yourself stay poor for ever.
Of course, there are several, very obvious, logical flaws in this argument. The first is a fundamental misunderstanding of socialism.
There are many misunderstandings about what a socialist is: primarily that it’s someone who wears a donkey jacket and lives by a brazier, possibly in 1979, and listens only to Billy Bragg. Well, I know loads of socialists like this, and they’re ace. They get shit done. But that’s not socialism. That’s people. People who like old coats and Billy Bragg.
Socialism is just a single, simple sentence: the belief that the necessities for the functioning of a society should be provided without profit. So that’s health, education, welfare, transport, the emergency services, the prison service and the justice system, paid for by taxation, and available to everyone, regardless of wealth. No paying Serco millions for running overcrowded jails. No G4S – the guys who fucked up the Olympics – still being paid by the government, despite being investigated by the serious fraud office for massively overcharging.
There’s nothing in socialism that prevents Charlotte Church from living in a nice house, walking a red carpet and, after paying her taxes, earning millions a year. If she were a champagne anarchic communist, who believed that all property is theft, and that money should be abolished, then she would be a hypocrite.
What people who denounce champagne socialists are doing is, essentially, trying to shame people who have empathy. Now, that’s a bad day down the opinion mines in anyone’s book.Champagne socialists, on the other hand, are people who could personally pay for an open return standard ticket to Manchester that costs £329 since privatisation, but recognise that other people can’t, and are suggesting that, maybe, society would function better if rail travel were cheaper, so everyone could use it.