EDITORIAL : THE DAILY MAIL, UK

Mr Brown and some cattle class manners

We have pretty much put an end to privilege. The good things in life are obtained through hard work and effort, not through rank and status.

If you want a more comfortable seat on a plane, then usually you have to hand over a bigger fare in return.

Most people do not bother to do so. The price is high. No normal, healthy person can come to much harm from sitting in economy class for a few hours.

But those who do decide to spend the extra money would seem to have an indisputable claim on the greater leg room and comfort they have bought with hard-earned cash, or which their employers have decided they deserve.

Why should British Airways override this simple commercial arrangement for an
ex-Prime Minister, returning from a long-planned and well-paid engagement, and provide seats for him and his party at the cost of upset and inconvenience to others?

Why does an ex-Premier need an entourage anyway? He is a private citizen. If he is so keen on occupying seats, why doesn’t he take his place in the Commons rather more often? 

And why should an airline, which sells specified seats on specified flights to specified people, think it justified or reasonable to tell paying passengers that their contracts have been voided without notice?

No doubt British Airways has the legal right to behave in this way. No doubt the name of an ex-Premier carries weight in whatever office decides these matters. But in both cases common sense should have advised against it, especially when one of the victims of this officious idiocy was a heavily pregnant woman.

In a contest for a comfortable seat, between a woman a few weeks from giving birth and a man whose undistinguished period in office is already being happily forgotten, most people would know instantly which side to take.

But BA, and Gordon Brown’s aggressive and charmless aide, seem not to have realised this. In fact, a little diplomacy and good manners by the airline and Mr Brown’s assistant might well have resolved the problem.

It is only because the British political class has recently become so insulated from real life, cosseted behind so-called ‘security’, that it never occurred to those involved to treat their fellow passengers as equals rather than ciphers.

Equality is a slogan Mr Brown uses plentifully. But it seems he prefers the theory to the practice.

Tarnishing the Crown

Foolish: You might have thought that Prince Charles would rather serve his guests pale ale and supermarket sausages than risk allowing his name to be used in slick publicity for a Spanish tiling firm

You might have thought that Prince Charles would rather serve his guests pale ale and supermarket sausages than risk allowing his name to be used in slick
publicity for a Spanish tiling firm.

Alas, it is not so. The heir to the throne has foolishly allowed the enterprising owners of Porcelanosa to help pay for a series of costly celebrity dinners and
parties on Royal premises.

The company has publicised the events in puffs in celebrity magazines and on its own website. On one occasion it announced: ‘Buckingham Palace dresses up in its
finery to honour Porcelanosa.’

 Such commercialised gush may sell more tiles in Spain, but it also diminishes the dignity and independence of the Crown.

Ineptitude, combined with a lingering desire to live more lavishly than the modern Monarchy can afford, are the real culprits here.

It should not have happened. It must not happen again.

Dangers of the Left's dishonesty over cuts

Sadly, Britain has become wearily accustomed to masked yobs fighting with the police and smashing windows.

Such shameful scenes scarred the tuition fees demonstrations – and, predictably, they were again in evidence on the fringes of Saturday’s Trades Union Congress march against spending cuts. 

But, while the protest was predominantly peaceful, union leaders cannot shirk all responsibility for the violence.

Shameful: The scenes which marred the cuts march on Saturday were stoked up by union leaders who demanded a fight against 'class war' austerity measures

Unite’s Len McCluskey demanded a fight against the Government’s ‘class war austerity’ measures. It is rather difficult to see how these words didn’t lend encouragement to the rump of people who, while proclaiming themselves Left-wing activists, actually believe only in their right to perpetrate destruction. 

It is deeply worrying that police fear the royal wedding will be their next target.

Equally predictable, of course, was the biased coverage given to the march by the anti-cuts BBC – which was desperate to present the event as an entirely happy, family occasion, regardless of the facts.

Disgracefully, a torrent of propaganda about how ‘Con-Dem’ cuts would ‘destroy’ the public sector spilled out of the corporation during the event. Ministers received only perfunctory right of reply.

There was also no surprise in the failure by both the unions and Labour leader Ed Miliband – who was perhaps unwise to have attended the march, given the rioting that followed – to explain any realistic alternative to cuts necessary because  Britain ran out of money on his predecessor’s watch.