"I've never seen anything like it!"

I hate all that U and non-U stuff - etiquette as opposed to good manners - judging people who say toilet and not lavatory, pardon and not what.

POGS You say that Emily Thornberry's behaviour demonstrates a "socialist elite attitude of snobbery". The first two sentences, second paragraph, of your post 21.28 sound distinctly snobbish to me. You seem to be carefully distancing yourself from "how some people live" in "some places".

soontobe Jeremy Clarkson is a friend of David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks.

Eeloethan

Think what you will.

I was/am amazed people don't know that there are many people who fly the flag of St George other than on football occasions. I am even more amused the perceived 'snobbish' tone of a picture of a house that is flying the flag and has a white van outside is lost on them.

Can't say much more really. To me you are twisting my post, to you it is a valid point to raise. No point in arguing.

https://fullfact.org/article/economy/mansion_tax_london-36595

Anyone want a one-bedroomed flat?

Good link Durhamjen.

A mansion tax really isn't workable is it. Wasn't it mooted before the last couple of elections? It seems to be something floated before an election which gets quietly dropped by the winning party.

I suspect Mylene was really thinking of commuter belt as being London. Living within easy reach of a main London line station wallops up a house value.

Hazel Blears was very good on Today this morning. She said what a lot of Gransnetters have said, that too many MPs have come into Parliament through being special advisers and really are out of touch with the majority of us. And we know they are.

Well, White van Dan is an interesting person. He's a cage fighter, can't remember when he last voted, would send the immigrants back and thinks children should be caned.

Possibly those who objected to E T also recognised the semiotics of that picture and either shared her purported view, or 'respected' Dan with his white van.

Either way, the whose episode is profoundly depressing and those who were 'outraged' clearly recognised the subtext and those who declared that voters should be 'respected' didn't bother to engage their brains before speaking.

And it's interesting to note that 80% of the Rochester and Strood electorate didn't vote for the former Tory now Kipper, Mr Reckless.

"those who 'declared' the voter should be respected didn't bother to engage their brains before speaking"

Well that's told Ed Miliband and most of the Labour MP's I've heard.

Do share the list POGS

Would the outrage have been quite so great if Ms Thornberry had been a] a man or b] a Conservative MP? [or both]. Which means [assuming that the answer would be 'no'] that at least the great British electorate 'expect' more from Labour MP's than the rest. Also, I don't think of myself as a snob [nothing to be snobbish about] but my heart sinks when I see Union Jacks or English flags draped outside houses [unless the English football team are playing] and I immediately form a negative opinion of whoever resides in that house .

Precisely so Tegan. The mentions on here of the Islington house and so forth carry exactly the same implications as the picture of the white van.

We all draw meanings from images and symbols that we see based on our experience.

There are plenty of slums in Islington and there plenty of decent chaps who drive white vans, but to pretend that those images are either meaningless, and therefore no offence was caused, or alternatively to assert that making assumptions on the basis of past experience about those images is unacceptable, are both ridiculous positions.

Wel, at least I've learned a new word today!

Would such patriotism be more acceptable in an upper class person rather than white van man I wonder?

Isn 't the Queen known for hanging flags outside her houses?

My Gardner is a staunch England football supporter and flies the flag when appropriate! He also drives a white van with his gardening logo on the side!
He lives in a council house which he is buying.
He is thinking of voting UKIP as he's fed up with our MP (as am I )

Which reinforces the stereotype somewhat....

Perhaps we should all start putting English flags up and completely confound UKIP in their search for potential converts!

MiceElf,

A few, as you requested.

The Daily Mirror article written by one Edward Miliband stated:-

"Respect is the basic rule of politics and there is nothing unusual or odd about having England flags in your window". 'That is why she was right to resign"

Chris Bryant Labour MP when questioned about it in the early hours of the morning the Rochester and Strood count tried to defend her but even he said:-

"My heart sank when I saw it because in the end the first rule of politics is 'surely you respect' the voters' and by Emily's own admission she didn't do that in the tweet she put out and she's done the right thing"

Bryant went on to say:-

"Look the Labour Party was founded to try and say that everybody is 'equal' in the world and you shouldn't 'scorn' anybody else, you shouldn't suggest that anybody is any different and you shouldn't 'judge' somebody according to whether they have a flag outside their house"

Simon Danckzuk Labour MP

John Mann Labour MP

Others interviewed on t.v can't remember their names.

I think Labour MP Chris Bryant summed it up best .

Would the outrage have been quite so great if Ms Thornberry had been a] a man or b] a Conservative MP? [or both].

a. I think the outrage would have been greater if it had been a man. I think that men notice things about blokes more than women do? So for a man to have commented on how the Rochester man was in exactly the same way as the woman mp would have been more surprising.
b. No. I think that the British electorate as a whole have come to expect that from Conservative MPs. The surprise is that this time it has come from a Labour one.

Would such patriotism be more acceptable in an upper class person rather than white van man I wonder?

Interesting question.
I do think that where celebrities in particular and in general lead the way, others follow. So the answer may indeed be yes.

They only seem to cost about £6 whenim64!

Don't you put a flag outside your house because you 'want' to be judged though?

soontobe, surely we grans should knit our own...

If this had come from a Conservative MP [man or woman] the outrage would be even greater than it is, especially with all our left leaning friends on G'net! They would have had a field day with it. But it came from a Labour MP, oh dear me.
POGS and TerriBull good posts from both of you.
Mylene Klass isn't far out with her observations on London house prices, as a friend of mine was looking at houses for her son and family [Stoke Newington] a semi or terraced was almost a million.Some were over a million pounds.He only wants a small house.

Actually I don't think it matters one bit what reasons this man had for putting three flags outside his house. We can each choose to judge him based on our own perceived reasons for doing so, which will inevitably involve our own prejudices.

The fact is, he did not ask for this publicity, she had no right to publish the photo and to draw attention to it, and the fact that she did calls into question both her intelligence and her political judgement. I'm very glad she has resigned from the shadow cabinet but I seriously wonder what she has to offer the Labour Party if it really wishes to still be considered a party of the left. I wish she would take her lack of understanding and her sneering attitude out of politics altogether.

Actually rosesarered I'm left leaning and I'm furious that this came from a labour politician. I would have expected no better from a conservative politician.