Thursday, May 27, 2004
NOT A STUPID MAJORITY
Comment from the Peterborough Evening Telegraph - January 2004
IS THE impossible about to happen as Middle England rises up and rebels against the jackboot of political correctness? I ask after witnessing the scenes at a Boxing Day hunt meet where a few protesting soap-dodgers and bunny-huggers were literally swamped by the thousands of Ordinary People who'd turned out with their families and children.
There was hardly room on the street to raise a hip flask of port and brandy, such was the crowd. So why were they there? To see what could be the last Boxing Day meet? To get a breath of fresh air and keep the kids away from each other's throats? To avoid the shopping hell that was our city centres? Because it was free entertainment and there was naff all on the telly?
Ruminating over the matter later, whilst composing a gracious letter declining the kind offer of an MBE for services to Anglo/Welsh harmony, I arrived at the conclusion that it was a statement of sorts, but in a very British way.
You see, any contentious issue polarises the pros and the antis: the people who feel vehemently one way or the other. But these people, from red-coated Barbarians to lentil-eating Lefties, only make up a very small part of the population. And what we tend to forget is all those people in between who don't feel strongly enough about an issue to make a fuss about it.
And that, I think, is what we saw on Boxing Day. Across the country tens of thousands of middle-class, middle-aged, middle-of-the-road people coming out to greet the Hunt. Not because they are pro-hunting, God forbid, but because they are not anti-hunting. There is a big difference. Mr Blah and his class warriors would do well to ponder that.
Silent majority they may be. Stupid majority they are not.
IS THE impossible about to happen as Middle England rises up and rebels against the jackboot of political correctness? I ask after witnessing the scenes at a Boxing Day hunt meet where a few protesting soap-dodgers and bunny-huggers were literally swamped by the thousands of Ordinary People who'd turned out with their families and children.
There was hardly room on the street to raise a hip flask of port and brandy, such was the crowd. So why were they there? To see what could be the last Boxing Day meet? To get a breath of fresh air and keep the kids away from each other's throats? To avoid the shopping hell that was our city centres? Because it was free entertainment and there was naff all on the telly?
Ruminating over the matter later, whilst composing a gracious letter declining the kind offer of an MBE for services to Anglo/Welsh harmony, I arrived at the conclusion that it was a statement of sorts, but in a very British way.
You see, any contentious issue polarises the pros and the antis: the people who feel vehemently one way or the other. But these people, from red-coated Barbarians to lentil-eating Lefties, only make up a very small part of the population. And what we tend to forget is all those people in between who don't feel strongly enough about an issue to make a fuss about it.
And that, I think, is what we saw on Boxing Day. Across the country tens of thousands of middle-class, middle-aged, middle-of-the-road people coming out to greet the Hunt. Not because they are pro-hunting, God forbid, but because they are not anti-hunting. There is a big difference. Mr Blah and his class warriors would do well to ponder that.
Silent majority they may be. Stupid majority they are not.
