does that mean they'll all be holidaying here on the South Coast?

*shudders*

Said when the Great Western Railway was first mooted: ‘It will only encourage the lower classes to move about.’ Letwin seems to be about two centuries out of date with his elitist attitude.

Surely a week or two at the same B&B in a seaside resort every year for the next 30 years is good enough for a Northerner.

No surprise coming from such an odious oxygen stealer (TMFTL) as Letwin. This being the man who robbed you & I of several thousand pounds to improve the drainage of his private tennis court.

A fortnight in Eastbourne would be suitable punishment for Olly.

I take my hat off to Cameron, he did a remarkable job in hiding the Tory party's true colours in the run up to the election. But I'm still astonished by how quickly they have reverted to type.

...Letwin is obviously a prize tosser. But I sure as hell don't buy Boris as a champion of the working man. And on the central issue - do we or don't we need more airports - I'm inclined to come down on the side of no, we don't. It's just possible that this isn't about oppressing the working man - although Letwin certainly knows how to score when his own goal is yawning in front of him - but doing just a little bit to save the planet. The entire social spectrum in this country, from toffs to residents of Sheffield (some of whom are pretty posh and well-heeled), already has more than enough ways of jetting off to the sun available to them, and the skies are insanely crowded.

he's referring to his esteemed colleague, the Deputy Prime Minister.

Agreed Letwin is an utter plum but this is hardly a party political matter.He was outed by Boris and currently being shredded in the Tory press.

IIRC Sheffield is the largest city in Europe without a civil airport as its socialist council during the sixties wouldn't grant planning permission for something that would
Help the bosses head off on their holidays.

I don't know what people expected. You should read this, it WILL make you very cross, and the Huffington Post is not one of your drooling leftie paranoid websites.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/government-by-the-rich-is...

We've got it here too. They're stealing all our money directly, or indirectly by inflating away the debt the City gave us and destroying our savings - which will take us deeper into debt slavery.

This is why I get cross about being told I have Fascism wrong - Fascism is the merging of the corporate and political state into one. They won't make the mistake of wearing brown shirts this time

There's a turn up for the books. After all, representatives of the people should be just like the people they represent: never saying anything remotely controversial or making a joke that backfired or just plain putting a point badly. So, let's write him off forever. Let's condemn him to eternal disgrace and disdain, never allowing him to sully the doors of public office again.

Well, it's one way of cutting down the number of MPs because by these standards we'll be down to about 4 MPs by Xmas.

...it.

Overlong, windy post. Suffice it to say that I don't think this is worth getting upset about.

...what a lot of the chattering-classes (for want of a better term) or environmentalists actually think. Including those on the Left, Right or Centre, politically.

I work with someone who is an active Green, and he is very anti-flying. But mainly he is anti-flying for short-haul package holidays and weekend breaks for other people. His YEARLY holiday to India and his summer holiday to a posher bit of France or Spain doesn't count.

Now, we do need to reduce short-haul flying, it's true. But it does seem to be those who can't afford to go far or only for a weekend who get to lose out doesn't it?

10 years ago Phuket was a regular holiday spot for me. Then the cheap flights made it possible for the Burberry baseball cap lads to holiday there, and having your breakfast to the sound of 300bpm techno and a tablefull of morning drinkers singing football songs ruined the magic somewhat. So now I holiday furhter afield. Does that make me a middle-class tosser?

in their right mind likes a Tory

be it by Mr. Letwin now or many others of all stripes before him, is that we pounce on them as proof of our own views and beliefs and prejeudices. Rather than ignoring the gaffe and drilling down to the issue, we guff on about the gaffe.

Assuming he did say it - it's interesting, revealing and the sort of opinion I'd like to know about if said by an MP.

when everyone knew their place.

who said that the tories intended to turn the NHS into a 'funding stream' which effectively handed out money for people to choose private treatment? I think he said that this would happen within 5 years of a Tory government.

Again, I believe this was in a 'private' conversation, or possible an informal meeting or suchlike.

If so, I think I quite like him. He's like an early-warning system for the disasters yet to come. At least he's honest (in private) about his abhorrent beliefs and plans, unlike Cameron, Osborne et al who are still claiming what they're doing is in some way positive.

Tory MP has said something both cuntish and snobbish?
Is this correct?
And we are surprised?
Why?

Tory MPs are perceived by many as being generally snobbish and cuntish. Other parties merely cuntish. But I cheerfully accept the criticism.

Reported these comments at a public meeting, without saying who made them. Mysteriously, the papers worked out it was Letwin - someone must have given them a clue and presumably it wasn't Letwin himself. So Johnson has now established that he doesn't object to private conversations being made public. And it's not exactly the first time he has criticised the government.

This could be interesting in the run up to the London Mayoral election next year. I think it's just possible that Johnson will make indiscreet comments in private during the campaign, and that they might find their way to the press. The government would of course be heart-broken if the ever-ambitious Boris was voted out of public office, but I'm sure David Cameron would mourn this event with the traditional champagne and cigars.

of these two, but in the circumstances....

Letwin, bit of a knob but the electorate voted in his mob including a fair few from Sheffield. Tories acting like tories, who'd have thought it.

a man who is allegedly influential in the public arena says something perceived to be inappropriate and offensive.

Does he get a two-match ban?