Hodge hassled

Over at the Palace of Westminster, it looks like it's time to break out the coffee and biscuits:

Tourism Minister Margaret Hodge was involved in an extraordinary slanging match with one of the leaders of the British holiday industry at a cocktail reception on the House of Commons terrace.

Guests were shocked as Mrs Hodge stormed off after clashing with Philip Green, chairman of UK Inbound, a trade group that encourages foreigners to take holidays in Britain.

She was furious after guests booed her speech. One heckled: 'You don't know what you are talking about,' and she fired back: 'Yes I do, you are totally wrong.'

Mr Green had enraged Mrs Hodge by accusing the Government of driving away foreign tourists with 'high taxes disguised as green initiatives, ridiculous red tape and a schizophrenic approach to air travel'.

She stormed: 'I came here for a pleasant summer evening on the terrace, not to be lectured.'

Mrs Hodge then claimed British hotels were overpriced and big visitor attractions offered poor service - and left the moment her speech was over.

One guest said: 'I have never seen anything like it on the terrace before - there was heckling and even booing.'

I can't profess to be an expert on the state of the British tourism industry, but if the government's handling of tourism has been anything close to its handling of the rest of the economy, and, indeed, the nation as a whole, then Philip Green probably has every right to feel aggrieved. And you can hardly blame him for acting as he did. After all, if you had the opportunity to tell Margaret Hodge, or any other government minister, what you think about the way they're running the country, would you pass it up?

But in any event, isn't the mental image triggered by this story absolutely wonderful? I wouldn't generally advise overindulgence in hubristic schadenfreude, but surely the thought of the odious Hodge being jeered and then throwing a childish tantrum merits at least one discreet chuckle!

Taking the biscuit

Culture minister Margaret Hodge has put her foot in it for the second time in a week by boasting how she can ease racial tensions over coffee and biscuits.

Her recipe for peace and harmony was delivered during a debate about research showing political disillusionment among the white working classes.

The millionaire MP for Barking, where the British National Party has established a foothold, said: "It is really interesting what I am doing now, because I am doing things like, simple things, asking people to come and have coffee and a chocolate biscuit with me."

Wow! Coffee and biscuits with Margaret Hodge! I'll be surprised if people don't move to Barking just to be able to partake!

"And people from all sides of my community come in, white and black, they may come in feeling really hostile and angry with each other, and they engage in a conversation and actually at the end of it you see a change in attitudes."

Mrs [sic] Hodge was immediately accused of patronising her constituents.

Well, yes. I can quite see that being told, in effect, "come, you dear little people, and bathe in the glory of my enlightened tolerance for a few minutes, and you will see that all your apparent problems are really just as silly as you are" might seem just a tad patronising. Even if coffee and biscuits, or even tea and cake, are thrown in.

Of course, aside from being patronising, her comments are idiotic, and her "solution" utterly superficial. People are not going to change their whole set of attitudes, simply because they have coffee and biscuits with a nice friendly person of another race. Indeed, in many cases there is very little reason why they should change their attitudes: clearly, many people, particularly working class whites in places like Barking, have a lot of legitimate concerns about the demographic, cultural, and infrastructural impact of mass immigration (among other issues), and those concerns do not become any less legitimate simply because one has a nice chat with a friendly Nigerian.

But, of course, Hodge, like all liberals, refuses to accept that any concerns anyone might have about the path Britain is taking could ever be anything other than utterly irrational fears, born out of ignorance and bigotry. As such, it may be quite logical, from her point of view, to believe that her "coffee and biscuits" method could work: after all, if the concerns themselves are only superficial, then the solution to them also needs only to be superficial. Like almost all contemporary politicians, she's out of touch, and, hopefully, come the next election, she'll also be out of Parliament.