Friday 10 April 2020

Who Are the Metropolitan Elites?


Downing Street has questioned the future of the licence fee and complained about the BBC’s General Election coverage, saying it spoke ‘to a pro-Remain metropolitan bubble in Islington, not the real world represented by Wakefield and Workington’. (Daily Mail 2019. Surely the real world contains both Wakefield and Islington?)

Those who use the word “metropolitan” are oddly cagey about its meaning. If pushed, they complain you are being “over-literal”. In 2020 Allison Pearson, who writes for the Daily Telegraph, complains that the “metropolitan media class” will never understand the people’s genuine love for Boris Johnson, a Londoner and former journalist.

I suspect that “metropolitan”, which sounds a bit like “multicultural” and also “cosmopolitan”, means “too tolerant, not racist enough, left-wing”. Middle-class Londonistas either dwell among the city’s diverse occupants, or can afford to live in whites-only enclaves – because isn’t that what anybody would do if they had the money? There may even be some truth in that.

The word “metropolitan” is often coupled with “elite”. We borrowed the word from the Russians and now use “elites” to mean “rulers”. In the US, “Eastern elites, coastal elites” are bleeding-heart liberals. In the UK, the “metropolitan, liberal elite” are the Marxists who control everything, according to the rich conservatives who actually do run the country. They are the 48% who voted against Brexit.

Metropolitan elites have metropolitan values and live in bubbles: lefty areas like North London that are sealed off from the rest of the UK. In fact, these areas are not really part of the UK. If only those out-of-touch lefties would get in contact with ordinary right-wing racists they might learn some sense. But they live in an echo chamber where indoctrination can’t reach them. All this means that their views can be discounted – they are not the “people”.

Have I missed anything?

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