Monday, September 29, 2014

Ukips wag tax shows how little they know about bags, shoes and class

Actually, Phoebe, it turns out this is not how Farage plans to woo the working class at all. Only 48 hours after the party mooted what for some reason was described by the media as “the wag tax” (because only girlfriends of footballers like posh shoes, you see), Farage promptly ditched it, saying: “It was never put forward as a policy. It was put forward as something that should be investigated … As far as I’m concerned it’s dead, it was a discussion point yesterday, it isn’t going to happen.” Bless Ukip with its “let’s throw any old idea at the wall and see if it sticks. Anything to get attention!” Who wouldn’t want to have these folks in charge?

Mulberry Cara Delevingne
Model Cara Delevingne launches the Mulberry Cara Delevingne Collection at London Fashion Week in February 2014. Photograph: Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Mulberry

Anyway, I don’t think it’s a massive surprise that Farage proposes not just wrong but downright condescending ideas when it comes to the aspirations of the working class. Quite how a man who was educated at Dulwich College (current fees: £5,801 per term for day students, £12,108 per term for boarders) and then worked in the City can claim to be the voice of the disaffected working class in this country is just one of those little ironies that the modern world of politics occasionally throws our way. You know, like how Farage makes political capital out of vilifying “Romanians” but is married to a German. All good political fun!
Truly, is there anything more amusing, Phoebe, than watching today’s political leaders pretending they give two figs about the concerns of today’s everymen and women? Listen to them, with all their “The other day in the park, I met a rhetorical device, and this rhetorical device really gave me an insight into the lives of all you Norman Normals out there. Stand up, Device, and show the country how I’ve ruined your week by dragging you out to a party conference!” This political search for the representative regular guy is certainly not just a British tendency: one of the many, many low points of the 2008 US election was John McCain’s adoption of a man quickly dubbed by the media “Joe the Plumber” and who was described by McCain as “a great guy”. Incidentally, Joe was last seen writing an open letter (gotta love those open letters) to parents whose children were shot and killed by Elliot Rodger in May this year – not expressing condolences, as you might expect, but defending his right to bear arms: “As harsh as this sounds,” began Joe, promisingly, “your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights.” “Your dead kids”: you have to admit, the man’s got a way with words. That’s the problem with regular guys, you see, Phoebe: they sometimes act a little too regular for comfort.
Anyway, let’s look at this idea that posh shoes begin at £200 and bags at £1,000. To a certain point (and let me underline that beginning cavil several times) I have no problem with Farage putting a tax on luxury goods over a certain price point. Anyone who reads fashion magazines regularly will know that prices for designer magazines and accessories have sky-rocketed beyond recognition over the past few years. Labels such as Miu Miu and Mulberry, which were once relatively affordable as a treat, now largely only sell things with four-figure price tags, which is ridiculous. Victoria Beckham’s gorgeous diffusion label, Victoria, currently has a dress on sale for £1,200, which is absurd. What is the point of having a diffusion label if you’re going to sell things at main-label prices? But no one prennez le piss, as les Francais probably don’t say, as much as designer shoe labels, who now regularly flog footwear for anything between £500 and £2,000. For shoes. You know, things that go on the ground. Now, as regular readers will know, I am hardly averse to spending money on oneself but there is only one word for this current state of affairs: gross. But somehow, I don’t think anything Ukip come up with will put a stop to it.
As even Farage somehow spotted with his self-satisfied, chortling eyes, the idea of taxing bags over £1,000 and shoes over £200 doesn’t make any sense because that’s not how those things are priced, and that’s not how people think. For a start, even shoes on the flipping high street can cost over £200 without breaking a sweat. Equally, you can still get a perfectly posh bag for around £600 – Louis Vuitton’s Speedy bags, for a start, are still well under a grand. And secondly, as you say, it’s not a universal working-class belief that people should be punished for buying designer clothes. In fact, many working-class people would very much like to buy expensive accessories themselves, and the fact that the tax was dubbed “the wag tax” was perhaps what alerted Farage to this fact, many so-called “wags” coming from working-class, yes, backgrounds.
So I think we can put this whole episode into the category known as “Ukip: business as usual”. It’s there among other classic Ukip moments, such as someone from Ukip claiming that Charlie Brooks is “planning to stand for Ukip” (he isn’t) and claiming Ukip isn’t a party of racism, it’s just a party that has a lot of councillors who like to say racist things. Which is totally different, of course. Politics! What larks!
Post your questions to Hadley Freeman, Ask Hadley, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Email
ask.hadley@theguardian.com.
View the original article here

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