Ordinary People : What are they ? Does anyone know ?

Reading an article by Simon Heffer in the Daily Telegraph and struck by the fact that this commentator, not known for his liberal or progressive views, is effectively saying that the Conservative leader and his senior colleagues have no experience of and do not have any awareness of the lot of ' ordinary people.'

As he says this term ' ordinary people ' is a patronising insulting cliche and is a euphemism for poor people working class or unemployed who are continually misrepresented and patronised and are woefully under-represented by all the main political parties in this country.

He floats the extraordinary idea that Andy Coulson, having apparently grown up on a Council Estate in Essex, despite being an editor at News International and probable phone hacker, somehow represented or could connect the PM and his cronies with the ' ordinary people.' Sadly, the News of the World and the Sun do connect with many people, but only, I suggest, by exploiting social problems caused by the neglect by the governing classes and appealing to a lowest common denominator form of intensely personalised politics that manages to avoid any wider issues.

Most of the working class were not enfranchised until until 1867, by a Tory Government, but they then perfectly sensibly voted them out knowing full well that they primarily represented the interests of the landed and the wealthy.

Later MacMillan and Heath were, so Heffer believes, fearful that they would be strung up unless they gave some concessions. They had both been in the army and were aware of the views of the working class regarding the gross inequality and exploitation that underlies the distribution of wealth in this country.

The current incumbents have never known anything but privilege and have little or no direct experience or social contact with so-called ordinary people.

Come the revolution ...