James Kirkup (not to be confused with James Ukip) writes in The Telegraph: “Perhaps the most telling thing about Emily Thornberry’s political demise is the defence she offered for her fatal Twitter picture of Dan Ware’s flag-draped house and a white van: She had “never seen” such a sight before, and thought it “absolutely amazing”, she said. That proclaimed ignorance, arguably, is more culpable than the sneering motives many have imputed to Ms Thornberry. An elected member of the House of Commons finds the habits of the English working class alien to the point of fascination. The Thornberry saga is, initially, a problem for her party, Labour, which is struggling to hold on to voters who drive vans, like football, drink beer and display the cross of St George without embarrassment or irony. But it also says something about our politics as a whole, about the dominance of the middle classes and their values, to the exclusion of those lower down the socio-economic order. In 1997, John Prescott suggested that “We are all middle class now”, but despite an economic shift from manual to intellectual labour, quite a lot of people in the UK can still be described as working class: around 40 per cent in all.”

Emily Thornberry is the Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury. Her current predicament merely reinforces data produced with The Information Capital that those living in middle class Islington, presumably white van, flag free to Thornberry (presumably not a Gooner), are the unhappiest of citizens of London. Across the pond even Capital America has said through Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.” In the pursuit of happiness, we need to trade material for social wealth. [+] [+] [+]

This comment was written in an East London tower block.

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