Robin Prior explains why any political party needs to appeal to someone like him, rather than make cheap assumptions
What is it with Tories and their ridiculous stereotyping? If it isn’t “Waitrose woman” then it’s “vegetarian Guardian readers” (Tory MPs spend jubilee weekend placating angry voters, 5 June). I suppose we should be thankful that they don’t feel more emboldened by Boris Johnson’s liberal use of insulting stereotypes.
I’m a vegetarian Guardian reader (a subscriber, in fact), but I doubt that the MP who made this remark has someone like me in mind. I’m also a subscriber to the Financial Times, I do not own a kaftan and I live in a house in bluest Berkshire, not a yurt in the forest. But more pertinently, any political party really needs to appeal to someone like me, rather than make cheap assumptions. Why? Because in most respects “people like me” (in my case, white, retired, male, comfortably off) are exactly the same as those who are the usual objects of prejudice and scorn, whether they be women, ethnic minorities, the “undeserving” poor or, God forbid, remainers.
