What Kitchengate tells us about Labour

Labour's press office probably thought that it was a good idea to invite the hacks into Ed Miliband's home in the hope of humanising him in front of the punters. A nice photo opportunity of Ed and his missus stood in their ordinary kitchen slurping coffee as we all do. Sarah Vine is a Daily Mail hackette who came along and reported that the kitchen is a soulless place, perfectly in keeping with Miliband's soulless personality.

Big deal. I mean, who cares what Mrs Michael Gove thinks or what she writes for the delectation and delight of the Daily Mailoids? Anyone who married a man who comes over as an anally retentive toad can hardly complain about other people's shortcomings, even if she does try to play down the fact that she is married to the creep by using her maiden name to write under.

It would have all been quickly forgotten had another hackette not decided to help Miliband out by sticking her oar in:

So the house has two kitchens does it? Maybe what Jenni Russell called "the functional kitchenette" would be better termed the butler's pantry? You know, somewhere that the servants go to get the little nibbles for the family and their guests when it isn't dinner party night?

After all, Justine Miliband isn't short of a bob or several, given that she is a high flying barrister, so she probably leaves all the housework to menials. The house is worth millions as well, so it stands to sense that the Milibands have slaveys grafting for them, doesn't it?

Arguing that the Tories are even worse is not going to work, We know that Tories are rich bastards, that's why they are fucking Tories. Arguing that Labour has always had upper middle class types in its ranks such as Clem Attlee is likewise not a goer. Attlee may very well have gone to Haileybury and Oxford, but he was surrounded by men who had left school in their early teens and had then grabbed what education they could from a university's extra-mural department and their trades' union. Men who were gagging for revenge in other words, and who thought that they had got it in 1945.

The photo opportunity was supposed to make the Milibands look normal - that's why the servants' pantry was chosen to the shoot. The problem is that they are not normal, in the sense that they do not have the economic insecurities that the bulk of the Labour core vote has. 

Miliband should just adopt the Attlee approach and not try to pretend to be something other than what he is. He will never be a man of the people, but he could be the man who gives the people some of what they want.

The problem is that since Labour has been pretty much taken over by the wealthy at the top, and the middle class lower down, would he be allowed to do that, even if he wanted to?