Have you ever said out loud: oh my, how have they got the gall to say that? Occasions arise when the gall of your heroes can come back to hurt you. I’m on the political left, and as such I quite like the words of Polly Toynbee, she’s very well skilled in saying things that I want to hear, but she does have some gall.
There was the time when the lads at Though Cowards Flinch noticed that Polly was writing in support of outsourcing to ‘improve standards’ instead of supporting workers’ rights in the public sector. Then there was the time on Question Time when Richard ‘why bring up the world war, just actually why, why‘ Littlejohn outed Polly for her fancy foreign houses (Littlejohn hates foreign houses).
Toby Young, Tory boy of such popular cultural hits as How to show Cameron in a bad light and still love him to bits, pointed out that Toynbee had gall for criticising free schools when sending two of her three own children to private school for part of their education.
When someone finds this out on twitter, I believe it is shortly followed by the hashtag #fail.
Toynbee is someone who ought to represent my political viewpoint, but by night she illustrates a perversion of that view. And it hurts those to whom she writes for the most.
Now that I’ve shown myself to take this approach to people I used to respect, I can now turn to people I have never had respect for, and show them to be gall-ish too.
Prince Charles, it turned out, earned £271m in property deals in 2008, making an estimated £43m in profit.
The Mail reported back then that:
“The Prince’s income from the Duchy [created in 1337 by Edward III for his eldest son Prince Edward to provide an income for the heir to the throne] in 2007 was £16.3million or £12.8million after tax.”
This was after a massive £1m pay rise the year previous.
Yet he now comes out in support of ordinary people against property developers.
As the Guardian puts it:
“It is an unlikely claim for a prince who enjoys a £17m private annual income and employs 16 gardeners but Clarence House today said that Prince Charles believes it is his duty to defend “ordinary people” against profiteering property developers.”
This emergency budget is set to make 1.3 million people unemployed. My suggestion for him showing his support for all ordinary people is by contributing to the cuts, by getting his Mother to wave ta-ta to Edward IIIs outdated financial model, and giving up the Duchy. Then campaigning for the abolition of the monarchy, while throwing support at the scheme to nationalise all ex-royal buildings, thereby safeguarding tourist money to the country.
Until then, the man has some gall.