Play the Dave game

Chris

Meow!

The Chocolate Orange Home Furnishings Manager

And the point is? Envy? They're rich. They can afford expensive things. So what? Personally, I think the video's a terrible idea, but not because they've got an expensive laundry basket.

AnnaK

Mary, you are really going to get your envy under control. They can afford to have expensive things. Good for them. I am sure they have more important things to worry about. Did you not notice Mrs. Cameron holding their son Ivan?

Mary

Yeah -- maybe that did look a little bitchy! But seriously, I didn't intend it in a mean-spirited way. I just think it's funny -- almost touching -- how counterproductive the video is. It's trying to show how like other people the Camerons are, and in fact it shows the opposite.

Oscar Miller

My God - have the trolls taken over at Coffee House?

Dave B

I'll second that 'meow'.

This class envy meme is tired, please drop it.

Max Kaye

Um... Have I inadvertently been transfered to Hello! magazine?

The Chocolate Orange Home Furnishings Manager

Mary - No, there was malice in your post. I am second to no one in my intense dislike of Cameron, but not because he's rich. How can you say the video is "counterproductive"? Conservatives are nothing if not aspirational, and many captialist-inclined people will have thought their home looked rather nice. Sorry, but your post reeked of socialist, mean-spirited envy and the desire to pull better-off people down. Conservatives think: "Gosh, I'd love to have one of those. I'll put it on my wish list!" Socialists think: "How dare they have something that I can't afford!" You think "it's funny -- almost touching -- how counterproductive the video is." What toxic, condescending rubbish.

Chuck Unsworth

I don't give a toss whether his bathroom taps are 22 carat solid or 22 carat plated - just as long as the taxpayer hasn't had to pick up the tab. Now, anyone care to examine the cost of the wallpaper in Mr Speaker's gaffe (advisedly!). And how often do we pay to redecorate No 10 and No 11? Sure, these are offices of State, but the sheer unfettered luxury and waste is nauseous. Oh, and some of us wouldn't even know what a Mason and Pearson hairbrush or Heals birch-wood laundry basket or a Conran lamp might be - let alone how much they might cost. So is Ms Wakefield commenting from her personal experience of purchasing such items?

Perry Neeham

And your point is . . . what exactly?

Lance Diatessaron

I doubt most voters make such fine distinctions. I suspect most people make the association 'Cameron' = 'posh, rich' already: he could have a Tesco Value hair-brush and a Woolworths laundry basket. I suspect it is only the slightly envious among the upper-middle classes, conscious of the rungs immediately above and below themselves, for whom such analysis will be at all significant. Myself, I am surprised he *needs* a laundry basket. I had always assumed (a) that all his clothes smell beautiful and never need cleaning and (3) that his laundry is done by elves and pixies while he relaxes on a bed of phoenix-feathers, being massaged with all the oils of the east, and sung to sleep by choirs of angels.

susan

Did nobody noticed what Cameron said in his lovely home.... 6 months homeleave for both parents after the birth of a child. Is he kidding!!!Maybe somebody who lives on a family trust can consider doing this.He is so out of touch with the real world

Verity

Lance Diatessaron - Your post was so-o-o naive! When Dave takes off his shirt, he throws it away! They wouldn't dream of wearing something twice!! I didn't like the whole idea of the video because I don't give a monkey's about politicians spouses or families or their home lives, not because they - being rich - have expensive things in their house. Maybe for their next video, for the class envy warriors like Mary Wakefield, they could do a studio mock-up of their home and have it all furnished by Ikea.

CS

Of course your thingummy was driven by envy, Mary. The fact that you believe that Cameron can't be like you because he's got more money than you is proof enough of that. Pretty shallow and about as logical as sneering at someone whose soft furnishings aren't as expensive as your own. What can we expect to read next from you? A suggestion that we all play a jolly game of spotting how cheap and vulgar a poor man's house is?

David, let me have your babies

Yes, how dare you attack Saint David, patron of the oppressed and protector of motherhood.

bill

I am not envious of Cameron in any way whatsoever. I'd far rather live where I am in my house than where he is in London or Oxfordshire. That said, I don't like him and think he is bad news for this country and the Tory Party. I will probably vote UKIP.

Proletariat

Brilliant point, Mary - obviously the above commentators have enough wad to have Moulton Brown in the downstairs loo. It will look like another planet to most of the country.

CS

Anyone who seriously judges him on how much money he's got, the school he attended or how big a house he's got is just suffering from a social inferiority complex. Curious how many people are rushing to assure us that they aren't the slightest bit envious of Cameron. No, I'm not envious. Hello, over here - someone who's not envious. Damn, no-one's listening - I must find a camera to convince everyone how little I envy him.

bill

One more point. Ever since Cameron came into power Cameroons and reflex deferential Tories have accused many of Cameron's detractors as being inverted snobs which is ridiculous. You can object to him, his policies, and his leadership, and you can take account that he has had a privilegd background without being an inverted snob and without seeking permission.

Verity

Proletariat - Funny how Mary could recognise all that stuff and knew the prices of it all. Do you want everyone to be on one income level, determined by the government? You old class warriors are so dated! I'll bet you think the NHS is "the envy of the world" - despite the fact that out of 330 countries in the world, not one of them has ever copied it. Socialism is dead. What is Moulton Brown, by the way?

Anthony Ozimic

Sorry, I must come to Mary's defence against charges of envy. We Catholics share the sentiments of Lady Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited: "I thought it wrong to have so many beautiful things when others had nothing. Now I realize that it is possible for the rich to sin by coveting the privileges of the poor. The poor have always been the favourites of God and His saints, but I believe that it is one of the special achievements of Grace to sanctify the whole of life, riches included."

Liz Upton

Have I just wandered into Comment is Free by mistake? I had no idea a Mason and Pearson hairbrush could excite such strong feelings. Personally, I use mine to brush my hair, and not as a hog-bristled weapon against the working classes. I'd suggest to Mary that the Cameron hairbrush is probably being used to brush hair as well, and that any feelings that it's a tool of class war are probably a bit overblown.

Verity

CS - How odd. You're saying the default position should be envy, a la Maray Wakefield? I hadn't realised that engine of snobbery still drives so many in England. Anthony Ozimic - Yes, "Brideshead Revisited" is from the Twenties and a different England. Ninety years ago. Now, when the unemployed live in accommodation with central heating and have plasma TVs hanging on their walls, I don't think the chasm is quite so deep as it once was. Mary Wakefield wanted people to go back to the video and try to spot expensive things in Cameron's home and put a price on them. Why? It came as a shock to her that people with more money can afford more expensive things? She hadn't noticed that they drive more expensive cars? She hadn't noticed that some people fly First or Business if they can afford it? I found her post to be malice dressed up as humour.

Verity

Well said, Liz Upton!

mark

I thought we had gone beyond class jealousy - what is the point of this "survey"?