The Incredible Shrinking Viscount

Labour Toff, Anthony Neil Wedgewood Benn talks down to the assembled working classes

A friend at university, Neil Duncanson, first coined the aptly descriptive term “Incredible Shrinking Viscount” to describe the then member of parliament for Bristol North East, a man who had started as Anthony Neil Wedgewood Benn, 2^nd Viscount Stansgate only to shrink (in inverse proportion to his self-importance) to the oh-so-proletarian, Tony Benn.

I was reminded of the Incredible Shrinking Viscount as a result of a little (and slightly snide) posting from Political Scrapbook:

Humourless Tory toff Jacob Rees-Mogg is attempting to close down a spoof Twitter account set up in his name.

Now Jacob Rees-Mogg may be humourless for wanting to shut down a Twitter account that takes the rise out of him. Indeed, some MPs would perhaps slice off parts of their anatomies to achieve the recognition and accolade of have some nitwit set up a spoof account in their name.

But – and this is a serious question – why did the author of this sniffy little piece have to use the term “Tory toff”? OK, I’m sure that the author will point out that Mr Rees-Mogg is a Tory and, in so far as the term is defined, most definitely a Toff but was that necessary to the story or merely playing to the Labour inverse snob gallery? The same gallery to which Labour Toff , Anthony Neil Wedgewood Benn, 2^nd Viscount Stansgate, inheritor of millions, pupil at top public school and Oxbridge educated – privilege and advantage defined, played when he dumbed down to just Tony Benn.

So why is it that Jacob Rees-Mogg, David Cameron, George Osborne and other Conservatives are routinely derided as “Tory Toffs” by the likes of Political Scrapbook whereas Benn, the late Michael Foot, Anthony Blair, Polly Toynbee and Tristam Hunt never receive the description as “Labour Toffs”? Is it that Labour folk like to avoid the real fact that there are plenty of really posh, champagne socialists out there – the sort of people who, as my father would say, “can afford to be socialists.”

Maybe though the term “Tory toff” is merely a random class-ridden term of abuse that we should accept as being from the same intellectual box as “Tory scum”. Demonstrating yet again that the left have no arguments left – merely insults.

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We need free trade in food not "food security" to feed the world

Today the Government released its "food security" strategy with much hurrah. Hilary Benn - MP for one of the UK's least rural constituencies, Leeds Central - made much noise about the environment, buying British and unspecified "threats" to food supplies. And favoured academics like Professor Tim Lang popped up on the TV and radio to lecture us about our eating habits, the environment and food safety.

But nobody challenges the Government's facts or asks about the real problem - it's a given that we need to grow more of our own food. That farming subsidies are benign. And that agricultural protection is important because of food security. We wouldn't want to depend on all those nasty foreigners for our food now would we?

At the same time the "food security" strategy frightens us by describing how a vastly increased world population will - like locusts - devour everything. So we stop them by not importing or exporting food? That's going to help!

I have a suggestion Hilary - the world produces enough food to feed current populations and, if we stop trying to grow petrol as well, we can feed a substantially bigger population. But only if we improve the distribution of food across the world. To do this we use a well tried and efficient mechanism call free trade. So scrap the Common Agricultural Policy, remove the immoral trade barriers preventing third world producers from accessing western markets and stop dumping our surpluses on developing markets and in doing so destroying those markets.

And while you're at it Hilary stop the food safety fascists trying to stop artisan food production in England - when did someone last die from eating cheese made from unpasteurised milk? Why can't the farmer slaughter his own meat? And when are you going to stop supermarkets aggressively forcing low quality standards and homogenisation on small producers?