5 Feet of Fury

Julie Burchill on the ‘progressive’ anti-Tesco snobs

Julie Burchill writes:

And look at the little Ahava shop in central London, which has been so shamefully picketed by activists that we have now seen the first forced closure of a Jewish shop for QUITE A LONG TIME – give yourself a pat on the back for carrying on Hitler’s work so well, gang! – by a landlord who simply got sick of all the trouble.

Fighting the good fight to make the world safe for artisan shops where some dopey Sloane charges you three quid for one warty, unwaxed lemon – ooo, it’s the Cuban revolution all over again, innit! Would it have been equally revolutionary to smash up the shops of hard-working Indian immigrants when their sheer effort displaced the white-owned shops which had always met the needs of their own “community”? No, because progress happens and if you don’t like it, you’re a reactionary. You probably also don’t believe in cheap flights for chavs, just like you don’t believe in cheap food for them. You may not wash, but you could just as easily be a Tory MP, or Prince Charles.

There’s more than one way of being elitist, stuck-up scum. Some snobs wear wing collars and toast the Empire, some snobs wear Palestinian scarves and burn the flag. But what the Bullingdon Bullies and the Tesco-attacking Toytown Trots have in common is that they both think they know what’s better for people than people do themselves.