‘The Mirror’ is wrong to attack Boris Johnson’s speech to the Centre for Policy Studies
The Mirror is a left-wing paper so some would say their latest attack on Boris Johnson was inevitable, but this time they are utterly wrong.
In a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies, the Mayor of London stated that he doesn’t “believe that economic equality is possible” and that greed and snobbery are a “valuable spur to economic activity”.
He also suggested “we should fete [the super-rich] and decorate them and inaugurate a new class of tax hero, with automatic knighthoods for the top ten per cent” and commented:
“It seems to me therefore that though it would be wrong to persecute the rich, and madness to try and stifle wealth creation, and futile to try to stamp out inequality”.
Naturally, these remarks will always anger the likes of The Mirror because they still view a tax and spend economy to be our only way forward. In comparing the speech to what they describe as “Gordon Gekko’s ‘Greed is Good’ tirade”, the paper instead just shows itself to be out of touch. Gekko’s exact words were as follows:
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.”
The moneyed classes, indeed, are not the problem. The real issue in today’s society is the envy, hatred and resentment towards them for working and spending hard. Yes, of course, disparity in this country exists and yes, of course, parts of this country are suffering but The Mirror would, in fact, do well to instead embrace Boris Johnson’s words:
“We may not have many gunboats any more, but we hardly need them, because we are already fulfilling our destiny as the soft power capital of the world – and that is thanks to a woman [Margaret Thatcher] who knew all about soft power and the deep Freudian terror that every man has for the inner recesses of a handbag. It was her fundamentally positive and can-do vision that turned this country around and that we should remember today”.
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