On the train to Bristol were a lot of slightly drunk business executives in their late thirties singing in the buffet car. One was wearing a paper hat.
I queued up to get my tea and bacon and egg and they were saying ‘There’s that f**king extremist Mr Benn’ and they sang bits of the Red Flag and kept up an absolute barrage of insulting remarks.
As I went carrying my tray they opened the door with elaborate and false courtesy and said ‘Happy Christmas to you sir’ and I said ‘Yhank you’ and went on.
I think that was the first real experience of the whipping up of feeling of the press against the Labour Party. After the victory of Mrs Thatcher, the old Establishment are now wildly self confident- the Civil Service, the military, business, bankers and so on
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